Sweet corn tassels, but no silks

A neighbor has a small stand of sweet corn planted, but something is not right with it.  It's thick stalked & healthy looking, but is abnormally short even for sweet corn.  It has already tasseled, but it doesn't really look like the tassels have dropped pollen.  It wouldn't matter if they did, because there isn't a single strand of silks on any of the plants to catch said pollen.  I do know we've had a very hot, extremely dry growing season thus far, but something is out of alignment with the pollination/no silks.  Do any of you know the cause of this?  TIA

this happens to me occasionally, the whole batch stays small (and usually any corn that does develop gets demolished by pests).
last year, i blamed it on a sudden hot dry spell, but i'm following to see if anyone had a better explanation.

Well Tereza, I think it's safe to say we can blame it on the heat/drought.  I've since seen half a dozen more small sweet corn plots in my area, and nearly all are struggling the same way.