Question? Sweet corn

My corn seems to be doing really well...it is all an experiment anyway. Clay soil, currently getting amended. Planted in row, of 1 row. (Plans to do this different next yr). Nice plump ears and healthy leaves etc ...except for this one I found the other day. I thought at first it was something eating it. It failed to grow the shucks covering the ear.....but, the rest is there. The silk, the kernels, nothing appears bug eaten or fungal infected. I think, it might just be the poor soil. The garden plot had laid fallow for 3 years, except for the winter cover crop we did last winter. So, anyway..ideas? Suggestions?

It happens from time to time. nothing to get excited about.

Kewl. I wasn't sure the heck was going on with it, as I hadn't tried to grow corn since 1990, and never in SC.

um, okay, I get that this happens (whatever that is), but I planted 8 corn plants, and they all look like this.

Is this the corn version of 'bolting'?

thanks.

Never encountered this in mass, one to maybe a half dozen in an acre. What moxie photo is showing is a piece cut off the corn plant. This is a mutant part with both female and male parts. From the description , it seems this was where the ear (female part) usually appears. This happens more often on tillers than the main stalk. Corn silk and grains on the tassel is also common. I have no idea why the plant gets confused. If all your eight stalks are doing this, you have more problems than this old fellow can comprehend.

Male and female! Now, that never occurred to me. I will google the package when I can go outside and get it. Maybe it can tell me more about the plant itself. I know all(?) or most are new hybrids? Maybe something to do with that. Genetic engineering or something.

Nope. It happened with the old open pollinated field corns in the 30's and 40's. As a kid I assumed it was reverting to its wild state. As a kid you have all the answers. Unfortunately aging reveals ever increasing ignorance. We grew broom corn ( which is actually a sorghum) which has the grains in the tassell and I thought it was just an older version of corn.

Don't you think that is what it is doing? Reverting back to it's original state? I know corn, as well as many other domesticated crops.... were merely grasses before agriculture was started.

I had about ten plants do it out of two hundred or so.Some were on tillers and some were not. My corn has not been grown for sixty years and is classified as a tuxpeno southern dent type that dates to the coloniel period in Georgia.

We had the first 2 ears last night with supper. Not all were filled in/pollinated, the kernels..but it was god enough to eat. We also had the first 2 tomatoes.

I AM so jealous - corn in June. I couldn't even start planting corn until after you had your first one, this year! Still, I DID get the corn in the ground, and it's now almost a foot tall. Second planting is two weeks behind it. Dreaming... :-)

Well, due to some bad storms lately, as well as winds whipping them around, I have lost most of the row of corn I had planted. I have however, started 2 new patches in different locations. As we are new on this 1 acre rural property, we just don't know what all will grow, what locations, or where. It is 1 acre, I am seeing several different soils, and of course, many different drainage situations. It is all just an experiment right now, so we are tickled to get any veggies from it.