This corn block turned out to be spectacular production. I left that big block tied up - it is still tied up now. I would highly suggest to help corn back up and do a "tag end florida weave" if it is near tasseling stage. Without supporting these rows I feel I'd have been lucky to get anything salvaged.
8/29 picked 3 that looked good but all slightly immature
8/31 picked 14
9/2 picked 13
9/3 picked 21
9/4 picked 19
So far I did one lap taking at most one mature cob from each stalk, then most of 1st row again. 70 picked, there are at least that many left I think. The cob length is rather varied with all this rain and my hand pollinating technique.
My next rows I called block #2.5 because it had same age transplants, yet also half was direct seeded that day of transplanting. #2.5 had more shade and seemed to lag behind. I tied them up too with the same "tag end florida weave" BUT I decided to cut those strings after a few weeks. The weave was started at the transplant height and seemed to be "choking" the seeded corn. Big Mistake, should not have cut it. Within a few days there was another windstorm and a lot of them with falling pollen and silks showing laid over sideways into the tomato cages. I had to completely hand pollinate the seeded corn there and I don't know how well that took. Were I to do it again, I'd do the same weave but from the shorter seeded end first to make it lower, and then not cut it early.
My #3 block laid down sideways in that last big wind as well, but it was small yet and most of it righted itself in a day or two. I tied just a few up in the windward corner.
Pics of #2 block are from 8/28 before picking any - I thought they were ready and picked three the next day, but they needed a few more days. I hand pollinated this block a few times, then bagged pollen from later block to hand pollinate the late cobs. The soil blocks were double seeded, so there are many "twins" and a lot of those twins have two good cobs each. More than a few have three. Then there are late/weaker ones that only have 1 or zero cobs, but they provided some late pollen. General spacing between a twin block is 10"; when there was only one sprouted in the block, I set at 5" apart. I try to stuff them in there!
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