Growing Sweet Corn...the journey and lessons learnt

Considering the fact that my tiny pot of cactus died under my care as a result of over-watering during my much younger years and a few not-to-be dwelt on unsuccessful attempts at other plants, I have to admit I am not the type of person with those set of magical green fingers.

However, having recently (hmmm...it has been 2 years actually) moved to a new flat with a fairly good-sized balcony blessed with plenty of sunlight, plus one fine day when I was at a plant nursery "World Farm" located somewhere in the Northern part of Singapore, I stumbled upon packets of seeds (I later realized they are being sold at many other places like supermarkets too) selling at 3 packs for $10. Since there is a motivating factor of potentially getting edible crops out of them, I have decided "Why not give it another try?" Therefore, together with my husband who claims that he is more experienced at growing plants, we sowed the seeds in a 3/4 filled rectangular-shaped pot of loose soil and diligently watered them almost everyday (read that they require ample amount of water for growth). Occasionally, we applied some fertilizers to boost their development.

About 2 1/2 months down the road, we noticed some dangly things emerging from certain segments of the sweet corn plant. Now abit of the corn plant anatomy. These dangly things are called "silks" which are linked to the eggs located in the corn cob, found in the female part of the plant known as "ear". These silks are meant to capture the fallen pollen grains from the male part of the plant "tassel" which is situated at the top of the plant. In my case, the pollen grains were observed around about a couple of weeks after the emergence of the silks. By right, if an egg is fertilized successfully, the silk will turn brown and the egg will develop into a single kernel. Therefore, it takes a bunch of the silks to be pollinated in order to obtain a corn cob full of kernels. "Phew!!!" That's alot of hard work. I attempted to hand-pollinate the corn plant by plucking off the tassel and brushing then pollen against the silks.

Little did I know that there are little pollen to go around. There is something really wrong with the male part of my corn plant. I realized that the tassels on my corn plant did not adopt the normal anatomy of having fanned-out tassels. Instead the tassels were bunched tightly together, forming a closed pattern, with hardly any pollen appearing. Without pollen, it is almost impossible for the silks to be pollinated.

Another problem encountered during the growing process, is the development of tassel ears. These refer to kernels developing in the male part of the plant. From what I gathered through my google search, the male part of the plant had reverted into a female which is not uncommon in areas where soil is subjected to compaction, which is probably the cause of my unsuccessful attempt at corn-growing as I had planted the seeds too near to one another.

I have since terminated that particular batch of corn plants. The take-home message from this episode is that when growing the corn plants, we should sow the seeds far apart. It would also help by not exposing the sweet corn plant to too much sunlight (as read from some sources).

#corn #seed #plant #gardening #fertilizers