RED TASSELS ON CORN

[3forfree]

Planted a block of sweet corn this year, and as the tassels emerged they were bright red, I have another block in another garden about 50ft away and the tassels are a blond color. Never had this happen before. Both gardens used the same seed.

 

[Fluffnpuff]

Did you mean to say silks instead of tassels? Regardless it could be one of several things. Did you by chance plant another type of corn that it cross pollinated with? Cross pollination does interesting things sometimes. If cross pollination at your location is ruled out it could be the seeds themselves were labeled incorrectly or the plant they came from was accidentally cross pollinated.


Another possibility is that the breed you selected has a great deal of variability itself. A perfect example of that would be painted mountain corn which gives all sorts of colors. What type of corn is it?

 

[3forfree]

I did mean silks. Seed was bought at a big box store, brand is Burpee super sweet sunshine hybrid. I planted corn from the same package in 2 different gardens on my property, the other corn has white silk, turning black as we speak,.since I took the pic of the red silk, they have all turned white, and are turning black now.

 

[Midnight Maran Momma]

I don't know what your situation was, but when I realized our corn stalks never grew as tall as I expected them to, and their tassels/silks turned burgundy, I looked into it and the most common answer was that it was likely because I didn't water it as frequently/deeply as it needed me to. Once the tassels/silks show up reddish, it's too late for those particular ears. I needed to learn from it and do better next time.