The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: ArosP on July 23, 2012, 03:13:12 pm
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I have sweetcorn in my polytunnel, it is about 5 1/2 foot high now, planted in a block about 20 plants. They have a sort of loose head of seedy stuff now, does that sound right and what do i need to do to help them along. I was told to water them from above so have been spraying them everey couple of days
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The fluffy bit on top is the flower which produces the pollen. The cobs appear where the leaf comes from the stem, and have silky hairy bits coming out the top - the pollen needs to fall onto this. Each hair is attached to one seed, so for full pollination of the whole cob, every hair has to have some pollen. So shaking the plant gently every time you pass disperses the pollen and turning the tassels upside down makes sure pollen can reach all the hairs. I have found that by the time the second or third cobs are needing to be pollinated there is no pollen left for them in the flower. We discussed this here a while back and one option was to collect pollen (in a jar or similar - there's masses of it) in times of plenty, then sprinkle/blow it onto late cobs as needed. :corn: :corn: :corn:
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Thankyou