That ear shows extreme failure to be pollinated.

Lack of pollination for sure. Your bed of corn, while healthy and nice to look at, is simply too small. The odds of getting pollen from one stalk to the silks of another in this case is very small.

That's what I was afraid of. Boo, hoo. If I had hand pollinated earlier, as soon as the silks emerged, do you think it would have worked? If I planted two beds of corn would it work?

This is why I hadn't grown corn before, but I've heard that some people do have success with small plantings so I thought I'd give it a try.

. . . Now I want to try harder!

Here in the UK where corn in gardens is a bit of a gamble we are always advised to plant in blocks rather than rows to increase the chances of pollination. That said we can get cobs from quite small plantings eg 12 x 12. I believe corn is wind pollinated so I'm not sure how you'd go about pollinating it by hand. Can someone advise?

On the first and second day that the silks appear, you shake the tops. You adjust the direction that the fine pollen dust carries according to the wind so that it lands on the silks. It is best to do this two successive days and the pollen is most plentiful from about 10:00AM to 5:00PM

VickiMa, on small plantings such as yours, you may want to try a closer spacing of about 6 to 8 inches. This will increase the pollen count. Some cultivars will produce OK with a closer spacing. The variety I plant, "How Sweet It Is", supports a closer spacing. However, the plants do compete for nutrients and sunglight, the ears will likely be smaller, and there will only one ear filled in per stalk. You'll need to fertilize to compensate for the closer spacing. But, I believe you'll find that smaller corn planted areas do pollenate much better with the closer spacing, IME.

Thanks Wayne.

Hand pollination does the good job in a single row planting of corn.Remove a branch from tassel and gently rub it on the silk.You will find the silks changing to brown in color within half an hour.I prefer morning time for hand pollination.

wayne & chaman - thanks for the tips about hand pollinating. I did do that, but I think I was too late. Do you have to do it the minute the silks emerge?

grandad, very interesting about the closer spacing and that seems worth a try. I was impressed that I have two or three ears on a lot of these stalks and I thought they were already pretty close. But then I don't know much about growin' corn! :)

vickima,
No, you don't have to pollinate the first minute the silks appear. There will always be 3 or 4 stalks a day ahead of the others. It's really about the second and third day they appear that they are fully opened up. There is a limited time period to pollinate and if it was rainy 2 days[not as good for pollination], you can see that time is of essence.

vickima, I also hand pollinated the corn because I only plant 6 corns each time due to lack of space. I gently remove the flowers from the tassels and placed them on the silk. There were 9 ears out of 6 plants. One of them were still poorly pollinated. There rest 8 were only missing a few on the tip. Like others already mentioned, I planted them close 6" apart and did the hand pollination continuously for a few days.

You can borrow tassels from a friend's garden if there is one near by.Cut the few tassels (with branch) and place them gently in a cup.You will see some yellow color pollens in the cup.Rub the branch on the silks of your plant and harvest the yellow powder with a Q-tip and apply to silk.You will see the browning of silk in less than half hour.

No.You do not have to pollinate right away.I t will be better if you do it right away.But you may wait a day or two and not more.What you can do in this case is cut the top of the silk with a sharp scissors and then hand pollinate the silks.

Well, I thought I did all that with the hand pollination, but either I didn't do it well or didn't time it right.

Do I understand correctly that each individual silk is a kernel and each one needs to receive some pollen? I have some other ears, a bit smaller but they feel fuller. Maybe I'll get a little corn this year!

bluebirdie, interesting that you've had success with small plantings, and I notice you're using the small spacing too. I'll definitely try that next year.

OP asked "Do I understand correctly that each individual silk is a kernel and each one needs to receive some pollen? "

Yes.

The corn pictured above would be perfect for someone missing teeth (like me) as we could align the cob to our "good" teeth and enjoy corn on the cob (like everyone who practiced good dental hygiene)

This might have commercial value

lonmower, too bad you weren't around when I harvested all the ears this weekend! ;)

The one pictured above was actually the worst. Some of them had filled out pretty well but were still small, quite a few only 4 or 5 inches long. I blanched them all and made a corn salad, got about 4 cups of kernels I'd say. Not a stellar harvest for a whole bed, but then again, it *was* an experiment.

I would like to throw a question into the mix. I have been having pollination issues as well. it has been really hot, humid, and dry here. I've been watering the corn daily to keep the soil from drying completely out. I have tassels and silks on all of my stalks, but no pollen falls when I shake the tassels. When is the best time to harvest the pollen to hand pollinate the silks?
Kim

Morning time around 10 A.M. is good time for hand pollination.

Tassels are showing; silks just emerging--when to drop mineral oil into silk? should it hit every strand of silk?

tassels are showing; silk starting to emerge. shall I apply mineral oil in ears now?

I haven't seen a response to my query.

Tassels are showing; silks just emerging--when to drop mineral oil into silk? should it hit every strand of silk?

Wait until your silks start to dry before you apply the mineral oil. You want to apply it to the silk
just inside the tip of each ear. Mark treated corn ears with tape so later developing ears can also be treated. Oil applied before the silk starts to dry may interfere with pollination.

Sorry to jump in here but I was having the same problem, almost. The silks have been dry for about 1 1/2 weeks now and I assumed it was ready for picking. I picked the largest ears but they're only about 4-6" long and not full with kernals. Ny hubby said I picked them too early.

How do I know if I just picked them too early or if they didn't pollinate well?

If theyh are not full of kernals they didn't pollinate well.

Greg
Nevada

You picked them at proper time.It did not pollinate well as Greg has said it.

Thanks. Also, my stalks are almmost 6' tall but there is only one ear of corn per stalk. I did plant five 6' rows. Is that not enough?

Corn generally only produces (1) ear per stalk. Planting in blocks like your five - six foot rows is the way to go about it.

Greg
Nevada