ISSUE 84, SOUTHERN LANDRACE & HEIRLOOM CORN, Part 4: Boone County White Dent
Boone County White Dent
A classic County Fair corn because it had been selected for ear size, configuration, and regularity, Boone County White was an 18-row dent corn that vied with Johnson County White for preeminence as a commodity white meal corn at the beginning of the 20th century. Boone County prevailed in the contest because it performed better in a broader variety of soils and produced one to three bushels an acre more than Johnson County White. Because of the barrel shape Boone County’s ears the kernels tended to be of more uniform size than Johnson County, with its tapered ear.
Boone County’s perfection of form was accomplished by seed selection exclusively. James Riley of Boone County Indiana in 1876 began working on refining Mastadon, a huge, rather irregular northern-bred Dent Corn, seeking vitality regularity of form and elimination of yellow coloration.
Note: Boone County, Kentucky, has invented a tradition that it created the famous corn variety; this is not so. In 1889 Riley’s seed came into the hands of O. C. Block of Champaign County, Illinois. Block wanted a more pronounced dent in the crown of the kernels, and a more cylindrical shape for the ear. It was Block’s improvement of Riley’s strain that became a national sensation at the end of the 19th century. It retained the 10 inch ear length of the old Mastadon Dent, but was so much more regular in arrangement with deeper kernels. [Herbert Myrick, The Book of Corn (NY 1903), 24-26].
This uniformity of character captured the minds of certain distillers early in the 20th century who wanted to make the corn component of bourbon/whiskey a neutral palate upon which to inject flavor via rye or wheat. If kernels are the same size, chemical reactions take place with greater predictability. So Boone County White became a kind of default corn for industrial scale distillers. It remains in extensive use in Kentucky as a bourbon corn. Seed for Boone County White is widely available and its genetics have been employed in numbers of white dent breeds created in the past 60 years. USDA #PI 221866.