How many ears on this stalk?

IaGary

Well-known Member
Was out picking sweet corn next to the field corn and this stalk of field corn caught my eye.

Yeah it is on the end of the row and catches most of the sunlight but still.

I don"t know if I had ever seen one with this many.

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A buddy of mine grew sweet corn about 5 years ago, I couldn't believe how many ears were on each stalk. Most had 4, many had 6. I would not had believed it if I had not seen it. Not sure on the variety, I wish I would have taken note. The other thing that I thought was funny is that the corn was only about 4 foot tall. I do remember the stalk and leaves having alot of purple color to it.
 
Live near a nuke power plant?

We have a small lake around here that I heard was once called the MOST polluted lake in the country. The joke was catching 3 eyed fish. They have spent millions and millions trying to clean it up. They even put zebra mussles in there attempting to clean it and they ran the other way. Of course NOW there's a zebra mussle problem else where.
 
Looks like it's spaced a bit further apart than the stalks behind it. Plant a field at 15-20 thousand kernels/acre and most of the stalks will look like that one.


We planted a really early hybrid--something like 79 or 82 days to maturity (104 days +/- about 6 days is the norm) on 30 acres a couple of years ago. It was a very hot, very dry year. 3-5 earshoots from just about every stalk (looked promising), but most only filled out one ear, and it wasn't much of one. Ended up being about 65 bu./acre.

Many of these stalks also had mini-ears that formed off of the brace roots, several to a stalk in many cases. Some looked like a bunch of little bananas. Ears were 4 or 6 kernels around and maybe 10-16 kernels long, and those did pollinate and fill out in many instances. Couldn't get those with the combine, though.

AG
 
Reminds me of the first time I grew miniature indian or decoration corn. I wasn't expecting 5 to 6 ears on every stalk, but that is the way it grows.
 
Multiple ears used to be more common on field corn, some sweet corn. Bloody Butcher and Reeds Yellow Dent heritage lines have some like that. Wasn"t considered a problem prior to WW2- hand picking and run the horses and hogs, cattle in field after harvest was common so a small leftover ear on a bush stalk was consumed on farm. corn pickers like a taller single stalk with one or 2 larger ears, breeding of corn lines took that into consideration after WW2. Corn/Maize origins in some histories is a natural occurring cross of couple grass"s in Mexico- one of the "parents"- Tziswan(or something like that) is common to have many small, husked kernal ears on multiple stalks- sort of like a oats or wheat head. Other "parent" is/was related to "Koalin" a Asian grain sorghum, was commonly called "Kaffir corn" in 1920s. Some of the old "Parents" still exist in central Mexico, used in genetic research and some noted to be growing wild in some reserve/park areas. The old genes come through every once in awhile- call it a recessive characteristic that is not preferred now for current growing and harvesting conditions most farms. Still useful for a hand harvest garden crop, Southwest Indian Corn conditions the multi ears, long pollination time, longer harvest by hand possible, "green corn" and "grinding corn" possible on same plant in small plots is a advantage. RN
 
Some hybrids will do this if not planted thick enough. So you will see it on the end of the row and on side rows. That plant will actually produce less total corn than one next to it with one or two ears. The multiple eared plant will not fill out most of the ears and the ones that do fill out will not have a good fill.
 

Looks like 2 good ears and nubbns with a few grains on the others. For the past few years my garden sweet corn has only produced one good ear per stalk.
In the past I would get 2 ears per stalk. Same variety, Merit. Open pollinated field corn, same story. Tried some Bloody Butcher field corn last year. Lots of rain, stalks a little over head high, one good ear. This year the stalks are about 15 feet tall, One really good long ear that I have to reach over my head to pick. I'm glad I don't do this for a living. This is SC BTW.

I hand grind corn to make meal and grits. The Bloody Butcher corn is very tasty for that.

KEH
 

Way under $3.00 here already. Local ethanol plants and elevators are at $2.64. If the corn crop is as big as they are predicting, hard telling how low it will go.
 

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