type or variety

the type or variety of a plant can be very critical,
and it is a topic that many people do not even think about,

I once had someone tell me that corn failed on them and it was not possible to grow were they were,
so I asked what variety of corn they had planted,
they told me "corn"
so I asked what kinds of corn they had tried growing,
they replied with "corn" again...
I dropped the topic at the time, but later found out they had only tried a triple sweet corn,
and they are the most fragile corn possible, and his chickens sure did not need that kind of corn to live on,
they would have been way happy with dent or flour corn.
but even within the flour corns there are many many varieties, and same with the dent corn, or popcorn or any of the other kinds of corn
the most durable variety I have ever seen is the White Mohave Flour corn (and most of the searches you do on it is info posted by me, I find this kind of sad there are not more people that like it) but it is not a high producer, but it will thrive in very harsh conditions.


there are varieties of plants that are made to taste good, and some that are good at living under the weather conditions of a local area, and many other traits

so it pays to look at what any variety is going to get you,
now most seed companies refuse to say anything bad about any seed,
so they often will not tell you if something can't take heat, or does not taste good, or can't be shipped well, etc...

here are some things to look at when making a decision,
genetic diversity helps plants grow better, but most of the time people get rid of genetic diversity when breeding for good taste, but this is not always the case,
the long island seed project would breed for good taste and for plants that could take harsh conditions, and then back cross them to the original seeds and then reselect for the good traits, and this gave them some of the best plants out there in every area,
so if you see any seed that says "long island improved" it is likely a very good one, and there are many of them out there sold in hardware store and seed companies everywhere.
http://www.liseed.org/

another company specializes in genetic diversity, the idea is that you get seeds from them and then you save seeds from what does well in your area and you will have a local variety that does fantastic in a very short amount of time,
and they are adaptive seeds
http://www.adaptiveseeds.com/

looking at something like beet seeds,
there is the standard red one, and it tastes great,
there are the ones with the fancy white and red rings in them and they look fun, but are really not that good for taste,
then there is the Cylindra (or Formanova) Beet and many people love them the most,
and being that they all grow about the same, the taste is about all there is to decide on that one,

my point is just because you tried "corn" and it failed does not mean that another variety is not going to do fantastic.

here is an over 12 inch wide leave on a squash and it is a big plant that set flowers faster than most of the ones I am growing,

and another variety growing right next to it the only has 5 inch leaves and is lots more yellow leaves

no idea what kind of squash I will get from each one,
but that is why I grew over 20 varieties of it this year,
I am testing what works better in my area and what I like more to eat...