Hermaphroditic Corn Ears

[Elizabeth]

I have planted corn before, but this is the fist time I have seen hermaphroditic ears. I have an oddball ear like this on 2 plants so far (most ears seem normal). The variety is Early Xtra Sweet F1 from Thompson & Morgan. These are first gen from T&M, I didn't save seeds from a previous crop.

They started out looking like regular ears, then I saw something odd shaped under the husks, then a couple days later the pollen spikes broke out of the husks, exposing the kernels as you can see in the pics.

Is this normal on the newer sweet corns to have a few aberrant ears?

[ChrisK]

Where on the plant did this occur? On the tassel or on the developing ear? Your pictures look like it is happening on the tassel but your description doesn't match that. It's not uncommon to have an ear develop there. It's called tassel ear and the cause is not known definitively.

[Elizabeth]

Huh. weird. I was going to say midway up the plant, but I went out and checked. Sure enough, it's at the top of the stalk in both cases, they are just short stalks. There is nothing else on them but the one funky ear. The other plants have multiple ears. I planted 4/hill this year with 12-18" spacing between hills, normally I just do a simple grid so it wasn't so obvious in the forest until I looked more carefully.

One is on the far right, the other is in the back mid-left.

[ChrisK]

Yep, tassel ear. Don't bother trying to eat it!

It's more common on the corn tillers (a tiller is a second shoot growing from the bottom of a single plant).

[Elizabeth]

Thanks for all the info.

It's possible these are tillers. We are near the ocean so it can get breezy around here. I have had problems with lodging in past years so planted the seeds in basins and filled in with soil as they grew - if they showed any leaning I hilled up some more, so I can't tell one plant from another now in the hill - the bases are buried too deep. These are the healthiest corn plants I have ever had in this house, so just when I was feeling all pleased with my results these weird ears showed up to take me down a notch. LOL