Topic: Giant sweetcorn

[Squash64]

One of our plot holders is growing this gigantic sweetcorn.  It must be at least 15 feet high.  The chap is from Kenya but I'm not sure where he got the seed, or if it has produced many cobs, I'll ask him when I see him.

[saddad]

I got some "Giant White" from Jungle Seeds a couple of years ago... it grew to over 12' but didn't produce cobs...

[goodlife]

Are you sure its sweetcorn and not maize? Maize or flour/dent corn usually does grow huge where as sweetcorn tend to stay much smaller (usually), otherwise there is no telling by the looks what sort of corn it is.

[Squash64]

Are you sure its sweetcorn and not maize? Maize or flour/dent corn usually does grow huge where as sweetcorn tend to stay much smaller (usually), otherwise there is no telling by the looks what sort of corn it is.

I hadn't thought of that, I'd just assumed it was sweetcorn!  I'll ask him when I see him.

[Jayb]

A couple of sweet corn varieties I grew this year were a good 9-10' and that looked pretty big! The cobs were fairly huge too, not sure what they were called as I'd mixed several varieties together and not used labels 

[gavinjconway]

From Kenya is the clue... In Africa we grew normal white maize as a staple food... so i'd assume its that..

[Squash64]

From Kenya is the clue... In Africa we grew normal white maize as a staple food... so i'd assume its that..

Is it used in the same way as sweetcorn Gavin?  He must have at least 100 plants, the photo shows only one section of them.

[gavinjconway]

It is ground down like a coarse flour and the meal is cooked into a thick dough like porridge and served with a meaty and veg stew.. That is the staple diet in Africa.  Also used as green mealies like sweetcorn on the cob, or cooked on hot coals whilst sitting around the fire having a beer drink, also as cattle food where the whole dry stalk and cob is all milled up and made into a feed, also used to make silage same like in the UK..

On our farm in Zimbabwe we grew about 400 acres of maize each year along with cotton and tobacco.. We had 1200 acres under plough.