Hand pollinating corn

[Vanisle_BC]

I am pre-soaking commercial seeds for the open-pollinated corn 'Golden Bantam' but few of them seem to be sprouting. I hope to grow seed this year so that I can stop being dependent on purchased seed of unknown quality. But it looks as if I will be unable to follow the usual advice of planting a substantial block to promote pollination. I may have to try hand-pollinating with just 3 or 4 plants. Is this a viable plan? Any advice would be appreciated.

Incidentally, I have been finding an unusually high incidence of low-quality commercial seed this year. When I say commercial I just mean seed rack & mail order garden packages.

[applestar]

Yep I hand pollinate all the time because I generally only plant in small batches.

- Plant your corn so they are in a block or circle never a single long row.
- I prefer to start with pre-germinated/sprouted seeds (use a seed sprouter or mason jar method) AND grow started plants in containers first so I can plant similarly sized developed seedlings closest together.
- For hand pollinating, do this later in the morning after dew has dried during wind-calm period.
- I use folded heavy stock paper or manila folder or envelope …or anything else smooth and handy like a hosta leaf …even my iphone screen to collect pollen from a single strand of tassel
- Fold paper to collect pollen in the crease, then carefully distribute by pouring directly over the silks to be pollinated as soon as they start to emerge and over several days as silk grows/elongates until they dry — each silk is connected to a single kernel on the cob = you want to pollinate most of the silks on the cob for fullest ear.
- I bend the stalk over to shake tassel over my collecting tool, rather than removing/cutting off the tassel since the strands mature at different rates and tassel will produce pollen for several days
- If weather is not cooperating and it’s windy all the time during critical period, use a largish paper bag, but I’ve been frustrated trying to get the entire waving tassel inside the bag without accidentally releasing/losing all of the pollen to the wind or breaking off or damaging the tassel. Much easier to give a light shake and let pollen drop onto open/flat surface on wind-calm days.
- don’t use anything that maintains static electricity - pollen will get stuck and won’t smoothly flow off when you tilt over the silks
- if slightly breezy, aim pollen from slightly upwind

- Also can hold stalk and tilt the tassel over target silks and shake to release pollen

[imafan26]

It has been hard to find seed and I have found that not only certain varieties of seed have been hard to find, but there were a few more mislabeled seed than usual. The germination rates were not affected, but having to wait for open dates to order seeds, the price of the seed, shipping and time it took for the seeds to be sent out was longer than usual. I know the seed companies have been swamped with orders and I guess some of them are working with fewer people as well. Seed availability has been spotty at least for some of the seeds I wanted since May of 2020.

I have hand pollinated corn before too. Just like Applestar said. The paper bag, is important it does not get wet. I hold the bag under the corn tassels when I pollinate the silks so I can save as much pollen as possible.

[Vanisle_BC]

Applestar, thanks for the detailed advice.

- I prefer to start with pre-germinated/sprouted seeds (use a seed sprouter or mason jar method) AND grow started plants in containers first so I can plant similarly sized developed seedlings closest together.
.- Plant your corn so they are in a block or circle never a single long row

That was exactly my plan but the seed, labelled "Sell by 12/31/2021", is not following it. Of 18 seeds only 2 have definitely sprouted and 2-3 more look like they might. The sprouted radicles also don't seem vigorous. I'm just hoping I can get enough plants going, to establish a seed line of my own.

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[Vanisle_BC]

Sadly it looks as if all my seeds are failures; not a sprout surviving. It's very disppointing. They came from a well known supplier.

[applestar]

I feel like considering the expiration, you should be able to complain.