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GoDawgs · June 30, 2019

I went to the garden around 9:00 this morning to get ahead of the heat and do the first main corn picking. 129 ears of Silver Queen! It's pretty, too.

I'm not sure how many decent ears remain to be picked. There are a lot of thin ones (all second ears on a plant) whose silks are dry but there's not much to the ear inside. Then there are a few of those that are just now silking but they've missed the pollination boat. I will say though that even though most won't fill out, I've never seen that many second ears forming on stalks. In fact, I've not seen any pickable second ears. But there will be a few more good ears that just need a couple more days.

We shucked them in the shade of the pole shed and it was great to find only two ears in the whole bunch that had a pollination problem. All the rest were filled out nicely all the way to the tip.

There were some ear worms here and there but not many, maybe one in eight ears? It varies year to year as I don't treat with anything. We did find three ears that had the very beginnings of smut under the husks. That's another variable. Some years it's bad and some years not present at all. And no, I don't eat it or even want to try it!

I will definitely keep the double row scheme but maybe cut back from 4' to 3.5' between sets or even go back to the original 3' between sets. Probably 3.5' and see if there's any plus or minus.

June 30, 2019	#37
GoDawgs Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Augusta area, Georgia, 8a/7b Posts: 1,685	IT'S CORN TIME! I went to the garden around 9:00 this morning to get ahead of the heat and do the first main corn picking. 129 ears of Silver Queen! It's pretty, too. I'm not sure how many decent ears remain to be picked. There are a lot of thin ones (all second ears on a plant) whose silks are dry but there's not much to the ear inside. Then there are a few of those that are just now silking but they've missed the pollination boat. I will say though that even though most won't fill out, I've never seen that many second ears forming on stalks. In fact, I've not seen any pickable second ears. But there will be a few more good ears that just need a couple more days. We shucked them in the shade of the pole shed and it was great to find only two ears in the whole bunch that had a pollination problem. All the rest were filled out nicely all the way to the tip. There were some ear worms here and there but not many, maybe one in eight ears? It varies year to year as I don't treat with anything. We did find three ears that had the very beginnings of smut under the husks. That's another variable. Some years it's bad and some years not present at all. And no, I don't eat it or even want to try it! I will definitely keep the double row scheme but maybe cut back from 4' to 3.5' between sets or even go back to the original 3' between sets. Probably 3.5' and see if there's any plus or minus. Last edited by GoDawgs; June 30, 2019 at 07:50 PM.