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brian_ny_nj_pa

maize at full height with tassels & ears

Brian_NY_NJ_PA
18 years ago

Finally, most of my corn is at full height. The tallest plant looks about 16-17 feet tall, but I haven't measured yet. If you look closely above the the tallest plume of red amaranth, you can see a large ear above it. Some of the ears are about 2 feet long. I'm around 6'3" to give you a scale of size.

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Comments (7)

  • rosemariero
    18 years ago

    Whoa Nelly! Do you have to stake those monsters? :D
    Looks like you enjoy growing them!

    ~Rosemarie

  • rcnaylor
    18 years ago

    Wow, that's some corn. With those kinds of results, I'd be careful planting any beanstalks. :)

  • klavier
    18 years ago

    Is this a historic strain? They had corn like that at the Royal Botanical Gardens In Nova Scotia a few years back and they said it was a historic strain and that before the new hybrids came out all corn was like that.

  • Brian_NY_NJ_PA
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I don't think this is a pure strain variety. The person who gave it to me said it was Jala, which is a historic variety from southern mexico. he told me that Jala needs long night treatments to produce silk on ears. Many of my plants are producing ears with silk, but some are producing ears without silk. The ears on my plant are all about 2 feet in length. The plants are also shorter than they should be which probably means they crossed with another variety. The person who gave them to me said his were short as well. I believe that it was a Jala plant that produced the 31 ft. world record plant. The person who gave me the seed has had them as tall as 28 feet, I believe.

    Here is a link that might be useful: my giant sunflower website

  • JoanofPa
    18 years ago

    what great pics, thanks! I enjoyed reading the background info also. Have you eaten this corn and is it good?
    Joan

  • springa7
    18 years ago

    Wow - I din't know that there were some types of maize/corn that reached 16-18 feet, let alone 28 or 30 feet. I don't think I've ever seen it taller than 10-12 feet, often shorter. Do you have very rich soil where you grow this?

  • Brian_NY_NJ_PA
    Original Author
    18 years ago

    I'm not sure how this corn tastes. It's the first time I've grown it. I will not eat any of it though. I will save every seed I have for next year. Supposedly, I've been told, it's hard to obtain seed from this variety; so I'm either really lucky or it crossed before the guy sent me the seed.
    There are actually quite a few large varieties. I've heard of Hickory King, but I don't know much about. I have grown Mexican June White corn before and that was about 15 feet tall. You can buy that at P&P World Record Seeds http://www.pandpseed.com
    I believe most of the giant regional varieties are sub-tropical or tropical varieties from southern mexico.

    Every year I get a truck full of mulch and composted manure. I usually throw all vegetable refuse into the garden, pine needles, grass clippings, peat moss, mulched leaves, straw, shredded newspapers, several pounds of kelp meal and cottonseed meal are mixed in every year.

    There are some stakes in the ground, but that is because we had a bad storm and some of them were leaning really bad, so I tied them up. Most of standing on their own. I had one that I was recording growth at over 7 inches a day, but I think it was growing too fast and couldn't support all the new weight and broke. I think that one would have made it to over 20. A lot of my larger sunflowers were averaging about 3 or 4 inches per day

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