Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. When you chomp down on an ear of corn, think of the journey that corn pollen goes through. The tassels at the top of a corn stalk contain anthers, the male flower parts. From just one tassel millions of ripe pollen grains are released and the wind moves them through the field, where --- if all goes well -They’ll land on the silks that protrude from the developing ears of corn. Each silk is attached to a one of the immature kernels (actually the ovules or eggs) and the pollen tube nucleus must grow all the way down that long piece of silk to its associated little undeveloped kernel. Once the tube is complete, the generative pollen nucleus fertilizes the egg. If your ear of corn has areas where the kernels didn’t plump up nice and juicy, for some reason those eggs didn’t get fertilized.
