How to Hand Pollinate Corn for a Full Ear
by Kristen
Growing Corn in a Backyard
Sweet corn is one of my favorite crops we grew in a small garden bed this year! It was our first time growing our own corn and we couldn’t have had more fun testing it out in a raised bed! This was the perfect experiment for a backyard gardener! We grew about ten stalks in two rows, five in each row. Talk about a tiny little corn patch! It sure was a dream though, and I constantly found myself singing Tim McGraw’s song, Where The Green Grass Grows… “I’m gonna live where the green grass grows, Watch my corn pop up in rows.” That song is obviously a bit of a stretch considering how much corn we grew, but I love the small beginnings and dream of one-day seeing my rows of corn pop up!
Pollination
Let’s talk pollination! Thankfully, when a couple of fellow gardening friends learned that we were growing corn, they informed us that we would need to pollinate each ear by hand. So my research began! I learned so much about what is required for good pollination and the process of hand pollination. When corn is grown in large fields and large quantities the corn is pollinated through wind pollination. The wind will cause grains of pollen to fall on silk strands. In small corn patches, like a home garden, the work of pollinating needs to be done by the gardener to ensure proper pollination. I’ve included pictures of our pollination experience below. I have also included some of the amazing things I’ve learned about corn this season.
Hand Pollination of Corn
Corn stalks produce tassels that will emerge from the top of the stalk. Tassels are the male flowers and produce the pollen. The female parts are the silks that come from the ear in the middle of the stalk. Some of our stalks had two different ears… one toward the bottom of the stalk and one in the middle. Silks will emerge from the female flowers right around the time the tassels begin to produce pollen. Tassels will be fully formed before the pollen begins to shed. I learned this after clipping a tassel too soon and I did not have any pollen to shake onto my silks. So make sure you give a little shake to your stalk to see if any pollen falls or even look closely to see if the tassels have seemed to open up to shed their pollen. Once the pollination begins in the tassels, you will want to pollinate within the first five days… this is the best time or window for pollination… although, I did notice you can give or take a day or two depending on your stalk. It varied with each stalk for us. You can hand-pollinate by cutting off the tassels and shaking them directly over the silks. I have heard of some people clipping the tassels, shaking the pollen into a tassel bag (brown paper bag), and using a paint brush to help the grains onto each silk strand, or even gently shaking the bag onto the silks. In the pictures below, you will see how we clipped our tassels, shook them over our silks, and rubbed them down through the silks, trying to hit each silk strand.
