I have a small patch of Peaches and Cream corn, only about a dozen plants. Several of them have developed tassels, but the stalks are only about a foot or so tall, and the cobs have not even started to develop yet. Would it be a good idea to perhaps wrap a plastic sandwich bag around the tassels to save the pollen? Does anyone else have this problem?
thats the corn we grew,, best flavor of all ! but it sounds like you planted late and didnt fertilize well ! we would have been finished with harvesting and feeding the remainder to the horses by now! details ? no to the plastic bag,, the tassels need wind to move the pollen or none will develop.
I am totally with Mart on this one. Maybe you planted too late, or maybe not--with the weather conditions this year who can say for sure. We here have all had some stunted growth veggies this year. I think that our problem was weather - related though. I realize what you would like to do with bagging the tassels; however, the tassels with pollen could well rot in plastic bags with heat and condensation. I would be wary of that. The corn may not work for you this year...my fingers are crossed for you though, mate. addendum: I had very stunty plants 2-3 years ago now, and they did produce cobs, but only one per plant that was edible. The plants then only got to be a little taller than my knees. I have not tried corn since...we have rats that tend to ruin the ears as well.
Corn requires regular fertilizer and mid way with ammonium nitrate which helps it retain water among other things ! We planted ours early and by late June or early July depending on the weather we were picking corn ! You can figure about 80 to 90 days to harvest ! One thing I didn`t take into account when I posted was your location,, So Cal ! So you should be able to grow most any time of the year except dead winter ! When did you plant this corn ? At a foot tall you need to fertilize and water it in ! Just make a small trench about 4 to 6 inches away from the root on one side apply about 1/3 cup of 13-13-13 per plant sprinkled in the trench ! Then water ! When about 3 to 4 feet tall apply ammonium nitrate by side dressing same way ! We use a tractor and bring a bit of soil over the roots of the plant at that time ! They call it "laying corn by" ! We could have fed half the county with what we grew ! And did feed most of our neighbors ! You likely will have a few ear worms as we all do,, just remove that part,, rest is fine !
Thank you all for your input. I water every other day, sometimes every day if temps are over 90 degrees. I'll give them a shot of fertilizer today. This is my second batch of corn this summer, I have a third one coming up behind this one (Silver Queen). Hope to see cobs form on the larger plants soon.
Be sure and apply fertilizer before watering ! Otherwise it does no good ! What fertilizer are you using ?
This may not be the correct fertilizer, but I applied a commercial brand of composted chicken manure. So we will see how the plants like it. Thank you again for all your input.
