hermaphrodite corn

Never seen this before. The only ear on this plant was up among the tassel with no husk



Anyone experience this before? Should these kernels be excluded from planting next year?

The grand secret of plant breeding, is that children tend to resemble their parents and grandparents. Therefore, if you save seed from the tassel-cob and replant it next year, it will tend towards producing tassel-cobs. Sometimes, when I'm feeling really serious about plant breeding, and don't have any family or personal drama going on, I'll go through the corn patch early in the season and cull the tasssel-cobs before they shed pollen.

Lots of hermaphrodite ears in the sweet corn I grew this summer. Often a single tassel sticking out of the tip of an ear.

s. lowe wrote:Anyone experience this before?

Not as developed as what you have there. I had a plant do that, but with only a few kernels. I think it was 3-10. The "cob" was more like just a stem.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
The grand secret of plant breeding, is that children tend to resemble their parents and grandparents. Therefore, if you save seed from the tassel-cob and replant it next year, it will tend towards producing tassel-cobs. Sometimes, when I'm feeling really serious about plant breeding, and don't have any family or personal drama going on, I'll go through the corn patch early in the season and cull the tasssel-cobs before they shed pollen.

Geez and I spread your grand secret to anyone who will listen. Thank you for the reminder. Clearly it's not anywhere near as productive as normal plants, I had just never really noticed it before and it is kind of fascinating. Its pollen is spread so no changing that but I will enshrine the tassel-cob on the seasonal alter and probably compost it near the solstice

Corn sometimes responds to environmental factors in weird ways. I can't remember if it was a drought or a flood year, but there was one year when it seemed like half my corn was producing various ear/tassel combinations like the one in that photo.

I had one corn plant do that this year which was rather curious. The variety i grew was cascade ruby gold.