While at a social gathering last week, one of the guests challenged the rest of us to guess how many ears of corn one cornstalk will produce. (Sorry, I live in Indiana - we have to talk about corn - it’s a state law.) We all guessed different numbers, but our self-appointed Regis Philbin said the answer was: only 1 to 2 ears per stalk.
I know next to nothing about agriculture (and thanks to all the wonderful farmers out there, I don’t really have to!) but I found the answer a little hard to believe - you could say I was shocked. Is corn - I’m talking about sweet corn for human consumption - really that low yield?
Yes, it’s true. Each corn plant will produce 1 or 2 ears of corn. Most corn grown around here for commercial sweet corn production will give one good ear per plant, and believe me, that plant is giving its all to grow even one ear that size. Smaller corns like popcorn can have a plant give as many as three ears.
The low number of ears/plant is not a problem for production, however, as the plants can be grown very close together. The yield is calculated per acre planted, not per plant.
smacking forehead Why do I always read these columns and get things twisted the wrong (read: most perverse manner possible) way in my head?
Anyhoo…yeah, living in the middle of a cornfield (literally) definitely gives you appreciation for how little one plant produces. I wasn’t really sure how the heck corn grew anyway, but dang…I ventured to our property line to take a look, and there it was.