Corn spacing

[PitbullMidwest]

You got to ride? Man were you lucky, I had to walk the fields for Pioneer. Absolutely no breeze, humidity above 90% and temps in the upper 90's. I got a little better pay, about $3.50/hour.

Our Youth Group contracts fields and pays $7.50/hr with the contractor profit going to overseas missionary support. They raised over $10,000 last year from detassling.

I have no clue how corn pollonates. I do know that we pull the tassle and there is plenty of corn to harvest in the fall. Jon, I'd call the county extension office in your area they will give you the facts instead of listening to "experts" like me /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif. Let us know what you find out.

 

[RobS]

They grow a lot of seed corn around here which requires the detassling. Basically, every fifth or sixth row is planted with the polinator hybrid. It grows lower than the rest. In mid-summer a machine goes through and clips the tops off of all the rows (the tassles). That eliminates the pollen source from the seed rows. Since the polinator row grows lower, it is not affected by the cutting. They still go through with a machine and kids to finish the job, but it seems a lot easier these days. When all is done, the polinator rows are the only ones with tassles on top and the pollen from those rows migrates (birds and bees) to the individual ears of corn on the remaining rows.

Sometime before harvest yet another specialized machine goes through and chops down the polinator row so it is not harvested at all. The fields are then harvested but the ears are taken whole for processing at the seed factory.

A friends dad used to grow seed corn and the seed companies are very specific about water, fertilizer and such. All the seed corn grown around here is irrigated. Apparently, it's pretty expensive to grow seed corn.

Of course, the latest fad in corn farming is the corn-maze /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Carl_NH]

Tassles pollinate the corn just like fruit trees it only takes one other stalk. Cross pollinating shows up in the next generation seed, that's ther reason for de tassellng seed corn.

carl

 

[Carl_NH]

As kids we smoked the corn silk from the ears, was a long time ago. Tassels are the top of the stalk..

Carl

 

[EdDekker]

The corn plant produces pollen in the tassles. When the pollen is 'ripe' the pollen drops out and is spread by the wind.

The silk of the corn plant receives pollen. Each ear of corn has one strand of silk for each potential kernel of corn (seed). If the strand of silk collects at least one grain of pollen a kernel of corn is produced. If the strand of silk does not get a pollen grain the kernel will not grow, no matter how many grains of pollen the other strands of silk have collected.

When you see missing kernels in an ear of corn this was caused by the lack of pollen.

Hybrid seeds are the first generation offspring of two different strains of corn. The hybrid will have properties which are not passed down to the children of the hybrid plant. The seed producers produce hybrid seed by setting up fields of one strain with the tassels (pollen) removed and rows of the other strain planted to produce the pollen. The pollinator corn seed from these fields will not be harvested, so the result is pure hybrid seed.

The field must be planted so that the pollen and the silk are available at the same time. This is not a problem for self pollinated corn. This is done by planting the two corn strains on different days (if necessary).

You can use the same technique to allow you to grow multiple types of corn in the same garden. Different corn strains/hybrids have vast differences in growing times, the time between planting and expected harvest. The range is from about 60 days to over 90 days. Silver queen is one of the longer growing corns at between 88 and 92 days from planting to harvest. If you plant a corn with a growing time at least two weeks less (74 to 78 days) you will not see cross pollination between your corn.

As has already been pointed out the big problem is the cross pollination of sh2 (supersweet) and any other corn. The cross of the sh2 corn with another type will produce a kernel closer to field corn than sweet corn. The published separation recommendations for Sh2 non-sh2 corn, with concurrent pollination periods, vary from 25 feet to 1/4 mile.

The books and seed catalogs I have read do not indicate the need to isolate non-sh2 corn types from each others.

Silver Queen is an su corn.

You will stretch the corn enjoyment season by planting a fast growing corn as your second corn. I have had good luck with Sugar Buns. It will produce in about 70 days and the ears are good over a longer period than most corn types (about 2 weeks).