[TFB]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here!

I know that its very unpredictable if you have sweetcorn varieties from the three main groups (SU, SE, SH2) close together, say, in the space of an allotment as the cross polination will produce unfavourable outcomes. However, I recently head, or got the impression that SU sweetcorn varieties are immune from pollen contamination from SE and SH2 varieties and therefore don't have to deal with this problem.

In an ideal world, the whole alotment would be co-ordinated to grow only one main variety of sweetcorn, but my alotment is slightly archaic and therefore, I doubt that this would be possible this year.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[gremlin]

Welcome TFB.

I think that the usual advice to plant in a block of plants (not a line) to aid pollination, means that the pollen generally doesn't travel that far.  Perhaps only the plant around the edge of the block on the upwind side would be at grater risk.

In practice, it is so hard to grow the things in British weather that the main causes of failure such as too cold, too dry, too wet, no sun, gale force winds, badgers means that pollen contamination isn't high on my list of problems.   If I was growing 10 acres commercially I might be more worried if the farm next door had planted 10 acres of the wrong type.

[mumofstig]

This old thread ( and the links in it) may help 
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=78398.msg882708#msg882708

[azubah]

I'm just happy to get mine pollinated as this seems to be the main problem for me. I have never worried where the pollen comes from. They always taste great to me!

[gavinjconway]

Hi TFB - welcome to the forum. It would generally help us with your answers if you added you location to your profile and would be good to introduce yourself in the intro section..

Now to give you a quick overview on mixing sweetcorn here is an article i did some time ago for another site..



Just a note about growing different types of Sweetcorn together.

Firstly you need to plant them in a block if possible few lines wide each way rather than 2 or 3 long lines to aid pollination.. you get better pollination when they are together as the pollen is distributed by wind..

You basically get 3 types of sweetcorn.
Hybrid Sweets = abbreviated as su
Supersweets = abbreviated as sh2
Sugar Enhanced = abbreviated as se

You can't just plant any of them together or you will get mutations of types and really strange cobs..

So basically I have been doing research on it and done the following easy reference - I also now understand it!!

Supersweets (sh2) must only be grown on their own or with 2 or 3 other sh2 types..
Hybrid Sweets (su) and Sugar Enhanced (se) can be mixed with each other no problem.

If you have (like me) different types on the same plot they say they should be at least 50'- 100' apart... a bit difficult sometimes!!

The types are sometimes noted on the seed descriptions but if not try to google them to find out what they are.

Hope this makes sense and helps.
GJC

[mumofstig]

As explained in the thread I linked to above - the other way to manage the situation is to separate them is by sowing at different times tassels are then produced at different times so that they cannot cross pollinate.

[azubah]

gavin, I find this very interesting..do you have any links to photos of these strange cobs and mutations? If you are saving seed for sowing next year I can see that it would cause problems, but does it make any difference if you eat them?

[JayG]

Sweetcorn is one of the few amateur crops grown specifically to eat just the seeds, which are bred specifically for the tenderness and sweetness we are all hoping for, so the "wrong" sort of cross-pollination can affect them greatly (hopefully Gavin will agree next time he's online!)

[gavinjconway]

Yep - in a few words... You can get horrible hard sour tasting mutations!!

FYI... We used to be seed maize producers on our farm in Zimbabwe and had such strict growing policies on our farm and neighbouring farms as well. Like we could not grow our seed crop within 1/2 mile from our neighbours and our other plain food maize fields as well. So huge swathes of non maize crops like cotton would be planted in the no go areas.. 

Then the tassles on the female plants would all be cut off asap and the male (pollinator) plant tassles would be  left to do the pollination. The male plants would be destroyed after they had done their job as they did not have a good cob worth using so the plants were cut out and fed to the cattle. This also stopped any contamination of the wrong cobs being picked.  We grew 4 rows female plants then 2 rows male plants and so on throughout the whole field.. Sometimes 200 acres in size.

[Aunt Sally]

I presume that's to produce F1 crosses, Gavin.

[azubah]

There are obviously a lot of things going on which I don't fully understand or have experience of. I only seem to have problems with getting enough pollination, and squirrels pinching what I do get.

[pdblake]

There are obviously a lot of things going on which I don't fully understand or have experience of. I only seem to have problems with getting enough pollination, and squirrels pinching what I do get.

I didn't even know you got male and female plants.

How do you tell the difference?

[mumofstig]

No there are male and female parts on each plant.
Male tassels at the top of the plant and female silks on the cobs 

I think there is only a big problem if someone is growing maize near your sweetcorn, because the sweetcorn cobs could then taste starchy like maize rather than sweet like corn, if crosspolination takes place 
Different varieties being grown across allotment sites don't seem to be a problem in my experience.

[JayG]

I didn't even know you got male and female plants.

How do you tell the difference?

I'm guessing that Gavin was referring to the role of the plants after being suitably "operated" on, presumably to make sure the cobs which were allowed to grow must be a cross between both parents (which will have been different strains.) 

[pdblake]

I've only grown it once before and that was in a pretty enclosed back garden. I'm only growing it this year by request from SWMBO I've a feeling I'm going to get all me tassels in a taffle before I'm done