Why would corn do this? Ears didn’t produce seed …now ears popping up in tassels and as tillers?!
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Interesting. Were there any unusual growing conditions that would have interrupted the normal development?
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Google ”tassel ears”. Quite common, actually.
”A “tassel ear” is an odd-looking affair and is found almost exclusively on tillers or “suckers” of a corn plant along the edges of a field or in otherwise thinly populated areas of a field. It is very uncommon to find tassel ears on the main stalk of a corn plant.
Without a protective husk covering, the kernels that develop on tassel ears are at the mercy of weathering and hungry birds. Consequently, harvestable, good quality, grain from tassel ears is rare.”
” Tassel ears are a reminder that the male and female parts of the corn plan are structurally very closely related. Wild progenitors of corn-teosinte spp. have complete flowers tassels and silks together. These can be crossed with Zea mays (normal corn).”
https://agcrops.osu.edu/newsletter/corn-newsletter/“tassel-ears”-sightings-corn
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Only two rows, so not planted dense enough for pollen to reach normal ears silk…and high wind at the time of silks…so most dried out without recieving pollen.
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Interesting…just had never seen it happening before. Regular ears didnt get pollen so very few seeds developed. Hoping something is viable to plant again.
It looks like you might have popcorn or hot corn in it
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It’s hard to get the kernels in tassel-ears mature. Usually rain/humidity takes them, even if birds leave them alone. Besides, I’m not sure I’d re-sow such kernels: I wouldn’t want to encourage the tendency to throw tassel-ears in future generations. I am not stating that this is the case, that it’s heritable in any way because I have no idea. I am just suggesting that you usually get more of what you select for. Select for weirdness and you may get even more weirdness.
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It must be heritable but was probably selected for naturally a long time ago, within teosinte would be my guess.
It seems like expression of the trait is dependant on spacing/density of the crop.
I could see it having been an advantageous trait in the wild when seed dispersal may have been dependant on birds or other animals.
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We are gonna sow the seed, no seed was produced on the regular ears, too strong of a wind at pollination time, and plants weren’t planted densley enough. We are just working with what we have in front of us. But I concur, the trait wouldn’t be desirable, but we didnt see it happen until the originally formed ears failed.
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