Sweetcorn another query......

I sowed my garden sweetcorn at the same time as those destined for the allotment in small plastic pots. My garden plot was already prepared to accept the seedlings but unfortunately the allotment is work in progress and subsequently my allotment plants were somewhat rootbound by the time I could plant them.

Interestingly, my garden plants have matured well and produced one cob per plant (almost ready for harvesting), the allotment ones though have surprised me, they are half the size of my garden ones and are developing multiple cobs!

Will await the outcome of the allotment plants but maybe I've stumbled on something good?

 

Vince you should be getting a lot more than one cob per plant. I think the problem is, you haven`t been pollinating. Tap the stme quite hard so that the pollen falls from the flower into the leaf axis.:thumb:

 

I tapped my sweetcron gently earlier on, nothing ... my toddler decided to give me a hand ... walloped the thing and little bits of what looked like white dust fell down into the leaves at the top ... so he is now the offical sweetcorn tapper - anything to get into the veg plot!
Dai are we doing this right?

 

Spot on Kath, both with the sweetcorn AND encouraging the little one. However, you need to pollinate the leaves down lower to get a bigger yield. Give the plant a harder knock, you wont break it.:D

 

I seem to remember that spacing has a big influence on the number of cobs you can expect, maybe your allotment plants have more space between them Vince. Either that or the soil quality is better, either way it will be interesting to see which gives the better results. Last year my cobs had good fat corn on them but had only developed about two thirds of the full length, as ever I'm hoping for better results this year.

 

Can only pollinate if there's something to pollinate?

I've planted the sweetcorn in "block" formation and I don't really like the stuff not to bothered, just curious cos the later planted "root bound" seem to be doing better on poorer soil than those planted in my prepared garden bed?

 

The sweetcorn tassels are coming along nicely, theres 2 cobs starting to form lowerdown on most of the plants - toddler still helping to 'tap' the plants most days, (although if theres some ripe strawberries he's more interested in those, although he's learning what the different plants are called) fingers crossed that I get some decent corn - it's been a hell of a learning curve (yesterday I picked up a worm - I can't stand touching the things so progress being made all round).