Kunstkammer Gem corn :: Hand pollination / abnormal corn ears / primitive corn Cuzco from Bat Caves Mexico

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wikhr33AEc

How to hand pollinate the corn to ensure non-contamination of other pollens.
Clear explanation. Cut back silk the day before
1// Scientific no nonsense University research method.

2// General method

3//Easy going method

http://gardensouth.org/2011/07/09/you-can-avoid-corn-pollination-failure/

Tassel just emerging on corn stalk; in the next few days it will produce 2-15 million grains of pollen

The pollen is produced inside the anthers:

Hollow anthers hang down on threadlike stalks; pollen is produced inside

Gardeners generally have pollination problems for the second reason – pollen doesn’t reach the female flowers at the right time:

Corn silk is the female flower, which is receptive when fresh and green

The silk is the female flower which can be seen at the tip of the incipient ears on the side of the cornstalk. Each thread connects to a single incipient kernal on the ear. When it is green and tender, it is receptive, but it will turn brown in just a few days and the opportunity to pollinate is gone.

Pollen that falls onto the silk adheres

When a grain of pollen falls and sticks to one of the silks, it begins to grow a pollen tube down inside the silk strand, right to the incipient seed, which it then fertilizes.

The problem with garden pollination is that there are usually few plants; not a whole field; there is a limited amount of pollen available – and it may blow the wrong way. New gardeners are frequently advised to use four short rows, rather than one long row, for this reason. Corn planted in blocks does pollinate a bit better.

For even more pollination insurance, do it by hand – it only takes a minute. When tassels first appear, pollen shed is only a day or two away. If you look at the tassels in early morning light,  you can see the pollen, if you look toward the sun. If you shake a tassel there will be a visible dust from it, if it’s ready. If you shake it too hard, of course you’ll shake loose the anthers themselves.

So, when the tassels are ready, in the morning just after dew is mostly dry, bend a tassel over the silk (on another plant) and shake it.

http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/agriculture/plant/field/corn.htm
info on corn, history of corn...

https://slate.adobe.com/a/Z0xaA
(made w adobe slate... interesting page w large zoom
abnormal corn ears


My gem corn on 7Aug2015

And...answer to why my corn has silk and some wheat like thing in the middle?
http://affluentpeasant.barkie.net/cornrst/CornBreedingBeta.htm

The Results Of Crossing Locally Adapted Traditional Corns With An Origin Corn Like Cuzco

The only way to describe the crop we saw emerging as we grow out the crosses was awesome. The variations between plants were beyond any of our imaginings. We have some of 8 to 10 footers scattered among the 6 to 5 foot average heights in the rest of the crosses. But the real variation was in plant form. We could see the beginnings of almost every imaginable variation between all the forms we started with. From the large heavy robust stems of Cuzco to heavily tillered short Mandan types with Flint, Dent and Flour ears. There were plants with thick stems with and without tillers, all shapes of tillered plants with 1, 2, 3 or more tillers. (see pictures) Ears were forming on various leaf axils of the main shoot and on various leaf axils of the side shoots. The genetic diversity was as such a fundamental level that we even had occasional small ears the size of your thumb with tassels on top of the ear closely resembling primitive ears of corn found in the Bat Caves in Mexico thousands of years ago. [ See photo primitive like corn Right ].

http://hexell.livejournal.com/65313.html?thread=937761
pictures of many varieties of corn, diff colors

More...
http://www.crownjewelgourmet.com/popcorn_line.html
tiny popcorn, many colors