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Over the past several years my Father In Law has asked me a number of times, 73,323 times to be exact, how many ears of corn are there on a stalk. I confessed that I didn't know but that I was pretty sure there had to be more than one. What a waste if each stalk only had one. Over the week-end I visited a friend in Ottawa Illinois and on the way back I decided to get the answer once and for all. Well, I'm here to tell you, most stalks, probably 99 per cent, only had one ear. I did find one that had two and it's the close up image. For the sake of art, the cropping kind of disguises the second ear but there it was, 2 ears on one stalk. Makes me wanna find out why there hasn't been more research done on growing more ears per stalk. The yield per acre could very easily triple. I ramble but I miss the days when I shot a lot more for an agency that specialized in AG products. I loved that work.
Over the past several years my Father In Law has asked me a number of times, 73,323 times to be exact, how many ears of corn are there on a stalk. I confessed that I didn't know but that I was pretty sure there had to be more than one. What a waste if each stalk only had one. Over the week-end I visited a friend in Ottawa Illinois and on the way back I decided to get the answer once and for all. Well, I'm here to tell you, most stalks, probably 99 per cent, only had one ear. I did find one that had two and it's the close up image. For the sake of art, the cropping kind of disguises the second ear but there it was, 2 ears on one stalk. Makes me wanna find out why there hasn't been more research done on growing more ears per stalk. The yield per acre could very easily triple. I ramble but I miss the days when I shot a lot more for an agency that specialized in AG products. I loved that work.
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2 comments:
Too much information but according to Joseph E. Armstrong, Faculty, Botany, Illinois State University
"Genetically uniform field corn usually only has a single ear per stalk.
Most sweet corn varieties will produce 2-4 ears per stalk. The reason most modern hybrid varieties have fewer ears deals with two issues, pollination and investment in offspring. In crop fields all the individuals the same age, so there aren't enough individuals producing pollen early and late to pollinate early or late ears. Thes econd reason is that a plant has a limited amount of resources. Field corn may only produce one ear, but it's a big ear and the kernels are bigger. So there may be no particular advantage in terms of production of offspring in having more ears.
I believe the stalks that have a single ear are known as Van Goghs.
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