Allotments 4 All

Hello,

First time growing sweetcorn and my plants have flowered and the flowers have gone a little yellow with little long bits handing off them. Below, on the stems I can see plenty of the bearded bits from the top of the sweetcorn.

Question is... how does sweetcorn get pollinated? do the bits from the flower that are falling off need to fall onto the bearded bits?? (apologies for the technical terms... bits , bearded bits... but just don't know the names for them)  :P

Is there anything I can do to encourage pollication or to help it along?

many thanks,
Vaca

If you have planted your sweetcorn in blocks, then the wind should do the pollination for you. Otherwise, you can give the stems a bit of a shake, and that should disturb the pollen which should drop down and do the business.

When the tassles on the corn start to turn brown, that is an indication that they are ripe.

And earth them up a bit-you might be seeing roots looking a bit like claws-earthing them up does help to improve the crop

"bearded bits": these are the stigmas, one per corn segment, so each "hair" of the beard needs a dose of pollen if the whole cob is to ripen evenly. You are lucky - mine are nowhere near flowering yet, though they look fairly robust.

hi

I only have one sweetcorn plant, bought from a summer fair,

do you need more than one plant, or can I just do the shaking thing?

we have some wild grass and flowers nearby so I dont know if the insects

from there will pollinate or does sweetcorn not get pollinated by insects?

thanks

:)

Great! I've got my sweetcorn in a block so should hopefully pollinate ok. I'll just let nature do its thing.

...and will earth up as suggested  :)

thanks,
Vaca