I'm still puzzled why my back garden corn failed while the corn planted on the allotment (same variety, tougher conditions - no water and a thin sandy soil) did OK .
I had put it down to lack of water but I always think of corn growing in hot, dry conditions.
Some time ago Hanna wrote about growth inhibitors in the seed husks of sunflowers. Clearing the corn yesterday it struck me that the difference between the back garden corn and the allotment was the former was next to the sunflower bed.
Could this be why it failed?
But the time the corn was setting, the sunflowers wouldn't have been producing seed or husks. I wonder if they secrete the growth inhibitor any other way?
I *think* it's literally just in the sunflower seed hulls.
I have not ever grown corn because I've read that for a good corn harvest you need to have a minimum number of plants to cross-pollinate well. I can't remember what that number/space is right now, but I bet you could find it somewhere online.
I'm thinking that maybe since there are other people growing corn in nearby allottments (assuming that is the case) that you get that cross-pollination without planting more corn yourself there. Could that be?
Posted by: blackswamp_girl (Kim) | September 18, 2006 at 08:44 PM
No corn was grown in the neighbouring allotments this year but I'd planted out the same number of plants as last year (20).
I think you're right about it being the shells/husks only.
There is one possibility - the seed was mislabelled so unlike last year it wasn't an early cropper. The plants did produce some small and fewer ears but never seemed to bulk up - so I ripped them out a few weeks ago. But a gardener suggested I should have left them in just to see if they ever got under way!
His crop is just begining to bulk up (I think end Sept is very late especially in our climate). Oh well!
Posted by: John Curtin | September 19, 2006 at 08:22 AM