Can anyone tell me what this is?

Can anyone tell me what this is? It was growing at the base of a stalk of corn in my garden. It was the only plant with this so to play it safe, I dug up the corn plant and threw it in the fire pit and burned it. Please let me know what you think it is, and if there is anything I can do to keep it from happening to the rest of my corn. :(

That sure is a wicked, alien-looking growth!

Smut (Ustilago maydis)

Farmerdill, DG says Smut is "a fungal disease". ....Will it spread to the rest of my corn? Is my soil contaminated? Will it kill the plant? Did I do the right thing by burning it? Is there anything I can do so that the rest of my corn doesn't get it?

Gymgirl, I thought the SAME thing when I saw it! .....Didn't even want to touch it!! Scary! lol

It is considered a delicacy in several cultures. But yes it is a fungus and will overwinter in the soil to reappear next year. Does not spread to living plants the first year. http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/march98.html http://www.ehow.com/how_2074804_eradicate-corn-smut.html

Oh my my - that would creep me right out!

It would creep me out more to see it on a plate, being devoured! Can you say, "creepy alien charging outta someone's chest in the middle of the night after dinner?"

Heaven help the spouse!

Return of the Body Snatchers?

You all are so enthralled , and I figure you for Euell Gibbons desciples, I thought I would share a few recipes for Ustilago maydis. http://www.sweetcorn.illinois.edu/Common-smut/Recipes.htm http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Articles/Mexican-Ingredients-1032/huitlacoche.aspx http://www.mykoweb.com/recipes/mn_mar92.html http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36799184/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

Oh my stars! The last thing I had on my mind was, "Wonder what that tastes like???" This just proves that some people will eat anything that sits still long enough.......and/or, if you get hungry enough you'll eat anything. :-P

So, would this Smut have eventually taken over the whole stalk? Would it have killed the plant itself or just grown to maturity with all this Smut on it? ......I learn something new every day.

Forgot to ask..... If I had left it alone, how big would it have gotten???

The one that is turning black is getting ready to release it spores (or is in the process of releasing its spores?) - it wouldn't have gotten much bigger. The ones I've seen before were quarter to golf ball sized. Yours is one of largest ones I've had the misfortune to see. I like mushrooms, but I don't think I could eat one of those.

Thanks for replying Pollengarden! Boy, I hope I caught it before it released the spores. Were there spores IN the soil before I planted my corn? Is that how I got it? Nothing but a lawn was grown there for decades before last year. I checked the rest of my corn today and didn't see any more of it. ......You know......now that I think about it, we've been having a minor problem with mushrooms popping up in our grass in spots around the farm. Is there any kind of connection between the mushroom and the Smut?

*Sigh* ....I've so much to learn......

Glenda--I know you are growing for home consumption but that fungus is worth about 8 times what the corn is on the open market. If it shows up again can you send me some spores before you burn it? :)

It's known as "huitlacoche" (sometimes spelled cuitlacoche) in the areas where it's eaten. Many Mexican farmers are delighted when this pathogen invades their crop, since they can receive a much higher price for the infected grains. Sometimes they even inoculate the fungus into the crop on purpose! There are many interesting dishes you can make with this fungus. I've tried it and find that it's really delicious.
Also called "Mexican Truffle"

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW! 'nuf said!

LOL

VORTREKER, sure I'll send it to you if more start growing, but I'm with Sequee; Ewwww! ;) I've seen it "up close and personal"! :-P LOL

I remember as a kid we had it one year - didn't have it before or after. If it was my garden, I would remove it when I see it, and I would plan on crop rotation anyway. I don't know if it would be possible to bag it on the plant until it is near ripe, and then send it to someone like VORTREKER or not, I might try it. The lawn mushrooms and corn fungus would not be the same fungus - distant cousins at most.

Ahhhh..... Good to know! ;)

How interesting! I've had smut on my corn before, but had never heard that it's edible, and never would have guessed it, either.

The first person to eat that should go in the Braveheart hall of fame along with the first raw oyster eater--LOL

There is a few fancy restaurants that make it into a soup. BTW, what makes cheese and certain breads so tasty is mold. Do you like blue cheese? Its not the dairy that gives it the flavor.

I think it's yeast that makes the bread tasty, or at least I can't think of any types that are flavored with mold (I've been known to have some around that looked like a science project, though!). The yeast spores actually live in the bakeries and give the bread a flavor unique to that particular place. Now I'm getting hungry for some blue cheese and crusty sourdough bread!

:-)

Yeast is a type of mold.

Don't forget sourdough.

I bet if its covered in Choc. its good. Anything covered in choc. is good its all in the presentation. Some fungus/mold tastes better then others.

I don't like blue cheese either.......or sourdough bread. :-P .......Now, chocolate I like!!!! Oh yeah!

I LOVE bleu cheese and sour dough, but I don't like chocolate.

To each his own..tht IS what makes the world an exciting place!

I actually had some of that in a traditional Mexican restaurant. When I saw it as part of the ingredients in a chicken dish, I asked what it was and nobody seemed to be able to tell me...or perhaps they didn't want to. It actually tasted fine, appeared to look like ground, cooked spinach, and I thought it was a green vegetable of some kind. I looked it up in a dictionary later, and was a combination of appalled and amused at what I had unwittingly eaten.

I Love bleu cheese and sour dough and chocolate.. Elect me as Pres. and I will see to it that all mankind will admit to loving it also. Or else. :)

Oh, great. I'm going to be force-fed chocolate! (Film at 11:00)

A little late but I just ran across this from a book written by a native American woman in Missouri. Apparently Linda's Smut is not the gourmet type. :)

MAPË'DI (CORN SMUT)

Mapë'di

Mapë'di is a black mass that grows in the husk of an ear of corn; it is what you say white men call corn smut fungus. Sometimes an ear of corn appears very plump, or somewhat swelled; and when the husk is opened, there is no corn inside, only mapë'di, or smut; or sometimes part of the ear will be found with a little grain at one end, and mapë'di at the other. These masses of mapë'di, or corn smut, that we found growing on the ear, we gathered and dried for food.

There is another mapë'di that grows on the stalk of the corn. It is not good to eat, and was not gathered up at the harvest time. The mapë'di that grows on the stalk is commonly found at a place where the stalk, by some accident, has been half broken.

We looked upon the mapë'di that grew on the corn ear as a kind of corn, because it was borne on the cob; it was found on the ears the grain of which was growing solid, or was about ready to be eaten as green corn. We did not find many mapë'di masses in one garden.

Harvest and Uses

We gathered the black masses and half boiled and dried them, still on the cob. When well dried, they were broken off the cob. These broken off pieces we mixed with the dried half boiled green corn, and stored in the same sack with them.

Mapë'di was cooked by boiling with the half-boiled dried corn. We did not eat mapë'di fresh from the garden, nor did we cook it separately. Mapë'di, boiled with corn, tasted good, not sweet, and not sour.

I still follow the custom of my tribe and gather mapë'di each year at the corn harvest.

How do you 'half boil' something?

Probably like "parboiled" -- brief boiling, like blanching.

I think she was referring to what we would call "blanching" to stop the enzymes from deteriorating the corn it would store better.
An interesting note was that she showed a diagram of the bean, squash, corn garden "three sisters?" that is not what most people claim were the Indians way of doing things. The squash was near the others but not planted side by side as most people describe.
It is an extremely interesting review of the book. I think I will buy it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bZ8-ZqxFlK0C&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=%22Map%C3%AB%27di%22&source=bl&ots=y_lLWQVrDJ&sig=N9G4UubJZBWL8dhZwI6N2_YgbGQ&hl=en&ei=qaU9TIS3CYG78gbv95mmBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Maybe confusion arose when someone heard that they planted these three crops, and prezoomed they were all mixed, when they really weren't.

Some tribes apparently did plat them in close proximity. This tribe planted the squash separately.

Another version of the "three sisters":
My sister has been doing some work/study on the diet of pre-historic native peoples.
She said that maybe it should be the FOUR sisters. She said there is evidence that they planted a 4th plant as a bee plant - native cleome? or monarda? - I forget which she said.
I was under the impression that the corn and beans where planted together - and the squash/pumpkin was planted around them as a barrier - I don't remember where I heard that.