[meriad]

Whilst watering last night I noticed that one of the sweetcorn ears had this odd large bulbous growth coming from it; just three of the kernels were infected - the ear itself was of a decent size and about ready for harvest but the bulbous growths were white with a black centre and having googled this morning it looks like it may be sweetcorn smut.   I'd never heard of this so just wondering if having this on one ear now means that all the others will be affected and the entire crop will be wasted or can it appear on one ear only and be fine for the others.

Also, as mentioned, this particular ear was actually more ripe than not - can I cut off the affected top and eat the rest or is it better to just put the whole thing in the bin?

And finally, some of the sweetcorn have red silk and some have lighter cream silk. They were all bought from a garden centre and I'm sure they were labelled the same....  or do you think I have two different types which explains the different colour of the silk

Thanks

PS:  two new things I learned today whilst googling - sweetcorn smut and that the hairs are called silk   

[Goosegirl]

Your silks may just be developing at different times so I wouldn't worry about it. Smut sounds likely but see what others say about what to do.

[JayG]

Never heard of sweetcorn smut before today, so my 'knowledge' is limited to gurgling.

If you're sure that's what it is, best advice seems to be to remove the affected cobs ASAP, the idea being to get them 'off-plot' before the smuts burst, releasing millions of spores which can be persistent.

Don't know whether the uninfected parts of the cobs would be edible - that will mainly depend on whether they were ripe when picked (it's 'only' a fungus after all.)