Homegrown Corn

[Circumferences]

We tried growing our own corn this year for the first time. (Midlands)

We planted them out in the patch in March, it's now October and the foliage has gone brown so it looks like they're ready, so we had a look at one. As you can see from the pic the corn is not exactly mature, there's no plumpness or colour in the corn.

I don't know whether to leave the plant alone for a bit longer - is there any chance it'll grow any more in the month of October? Or shall we just consider this is how they'll be? Xx

There’s no point in leaving it any longer it won’t grow any more now

it looks as if it hasn’t been pollinated properly. Did you shake the stems at regular intervals to help pollinate the plants during the growing period

No I didn't shake the plants but planted them in a grid sort of style to aid pollination.

Could it be poor quality soil?

It's been a very grey year and a cold summer where we are too. Apparently pumpkins have done badly.

One off the problems with sweetcorn is that it is not pollinated by insects it is pollinated by the wind. So I always shake mine to get them to pollinated

yeah it been a crap year for the weather my runner beans were really late in producing a crop

How often/when do you shake them ? I never thought to do that.

Looks like it might be overripe and dried out. I’m up north and my corn is normally ready in August. The plant will still be green and healthy then but the fluffy bits at the end of the cobs go brown when they’re ripe.

I’ve never shaken them though. I water the tops with a very fine spray on the hose - that gets the pollen travelling about.

It's very late to harvest sweetcorn, even for a bad year. Normally I pick them when the cobs look fat, the plants are still green. You may have left it too late.

It may have been the weather this year it wasn’t really conducive for a lot of things.

Normally I pick them when the cobs look fat

I did keep checking (intermittently,) but I never saw any "fat" areas on the plant it was just pure foliage all summer.

I'm not sure the cobs are dry exactly because they're tasty (yes I did bite one 😂).

We'll try doing both next year.
I didn't do either this year!

I did baby corn this year. Planted late and in the greenhouse. Was intending to move them out but but that point it was getting cold on a night so I've left them. Had half a dozen baby cobs and a couple more left to come. Your plant definitely looks past it's best though. Mine is still all green with the odd leaf at the bottom yellowing.

As usual on Mumsnet the first poster has it thanks BakedBeansforabrain

I'm on another forum and asked there too, all I've grown are 🌽 cobs without the corn 😭 . You need to manually assist pollination in small patches.

Now know for next time hey

Baby corn don't need pollination so they could be a shout for next year.

I do love baby corn 🌽

You need to assist corn with pollination. Definitely not going to grow now unfortunately

Definitely a pollination problem, and more time isn’t going to make a difference. I don’t do anything special with my corn other than plant in a grid, it do find it can vary tremendously year to year how they do. Much better results with f1 corn - I tend to prefer non hybrid, but corn and cucumbers are much better using f1 seed. This year was great for sweetcorn - 2-3 cobs per plant vs 1-2 last year. My squash also did really well - 3-4x more than usual and much larger. I am in sw.

tomatoes and beans were awful this year for us, though, so swings and roundabouts.

That looks a very narrow block - the edge ones never do very well, and that's almost all edge. You need a min 3mx3m square, really and more is better.