A-Maize-ing Corn

As mentioned previously, one of the sweetcorn is overtaking all the others in terms of height and growth. I noticed with excitement that the silks are now about 6cms long and a lovely bright green colour.

ONE ABOVE ALL OTHERS

According to a video I watched on YouTube on pollinating corn - which was hilarious as it was informative - the corn in my garden is still in its early stages. The silks and tassels need to be a goldeny yellow colour before they are mature enough to "mate". Or do what plants do.

As I can't seem to find the link to the corn video on YouTube, search "corn pollination" or the video's producer "TRYtoHELPyou" on the site. He offers very easy, direct instructions on how to hand pollinate ears of corn. So simple it's mind-boggling. The end credits are amusing too.

But basically what I have read and learned about corn is that the pointy bits on top are the male "tassels" which produce pollen with which to fertilise the female "silks", scientifically known as elongated stigmas. The proper name for corn is maize, and its scientific name is Zea mays.

In order to hand pollinate your corn (usually the job of wind or breezes) run your fingers along the horizontal stems of the male tassels to gather the pollen. Then merely sprinkle as much of the pollen onto the awaiting silks. The aim of pollination is to form kernels on your ears of corn. An unfertilised ear of corn looks kinda like a baby sweetcorn you find in stir-frys. Just a conical shape with tiny bumps without lovely rounded yellow kernels to complete the picture.

Once fertilisation takes place, the all-important kernels will begin to form on the ear of corn. You know pollination has been successful when the silks turn brown and start clumping together. The picture below was taken about 2 weeks after the silks started showed.

FERTILISED CORN