my sweetcorn is really odd this year loads of cobbs,most of them empty
and i think those things you called tillers. they appear to have a male fower on top and a few rows of corn beneath it very odd
i have tried putting plastic bottles over the swollen cobb just before it ripens this year as for the last 2 years something has apparently run up the stem and not left me much :cry: this seems to be working altho the bottles(neck cut off and slit down one side) do need ventilation but at last i am eating the corn and not feeding the local wildlife!!
marg
Squirrels like mine! Could be them. Yes you can get a few bits of corn off the tillers. I'm fortunate enough to be able to plant in excess of 100 plants, so I don't bother with them. Don't know why I grow so much, apart from the fact that I can! We eat some fresh, freeze about 40, the rest go to neighbours & the local church for their funds. In exchange I get free horse muck, Home cooked Indian food etc..
What goes around comes around they say.
That aside, from other posts, it appears it could be a pollenation issue with the missing kernals. Popular theory is that when the pollen should have been flying around, it was chucking it down with rain & it never got to where it should have gone. That theory seems quite reasonable to me.
I take it you've planted in a block, rather than a single row, as that aids pollenation. I was a bit late planting this year, so I can't say what mine are like yet - another week or so & we'll see.
See also this thread....
Sweetcorn - Kernal Problems