GARDEN STORY GAME SEED POUCH FULL

You’d think plant reproduction would be even simpler. Remember your high school biology lesson on how a human embryo forms? Sperm meets egg, they join together, and the nucleus of the sperm cell (the part that contains DNA) fuses with the nucleus of the egg cell, giving the embryo two sets of genes, one set from mom, one set from dad.

With corn on the other hand, the 'fruit' we’re eating is the seeds themselves, and because of a quirk in how corn pollination works on the cellular level, the quality and texture of the kernels is significantly affected by the pollen that fertilizes them. A paste tomato pollinated by a cherry tomato will still grow a paste tomato (though if you save that plant’s seeds, the next generation will give you some surprises!) In this case, the fruit that we eat has only the genetics of the “mother” plant, and the mix of genes that ends up inside the seeds themselves doesn’t make any difference in the fruit we get this season. Planting a paste tomato right next to a cherry tomato won’t have any effect on the fruits of those plants. A crop that was poorly pollinated because of timing problems between tassels and silks is said to have suffered from “poor nick” or “missing the nick.” Why should different varieties of corn be planted away from each other?įor most vegetables, which varieties you plant next to each other only matters if you intend to save seeds, but corn is a different story. Fun fact: the period of time when pollen release coincides with silk emergence is called “nick” in the corn growing industry. Another cause of bad pollination is mistiming of pollen release and silk emergence, often caused by drought. Sustained temperatures over 95 degrees F can prevent pollen formation, so if your area experiences a heat wave around the time your corn starts to tassel, your crop could be in trouble.

What could have gone wrong? One cause for pollination failure is extreme heat. Once in a blue moon, you do everything right and still end up with poor corn pollination. Image: Rasbak, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons If you don’t have very many corn plants and want to be sure to get the maximum yield, you can hand-pollinate by cutting off tassels and shaking them directly over the silks. This is why it's important to plant your corn close together in blocks, not spread out in long rows - you want to give the ears the maximum chance of having plenty of pollen fall on them. An ear of corn with hardly any kernels means that many of the silks did not receive a pollen grain. That happens because of poor pollination. Many novice corn growers have husked their first ear of homegrown corn only to find a sad smattering of misshapen kernels on a mostly empty ear.

GARDEN STORY GAME SEED POUCH FULL

At least one pollen grain must fall on every single one of those silks and fertilize each of those ovules in order for a full ear of corn to develop. Image: Mikrolit', FAL, via Wikimedia CommonsĮach individual silk on an ear of corn is connected to a kernel - or rather, a female reproductive cell called an ovule that will become a kernel if it is fertilized. This reproductive strategy is known as wind pollination. From that point, pollination usually occurs over the next six days or so as the pollen drifts through the air and falls onto the silks.

Silks will emerge from the female flowers right around the time when the tassels begin releasing pollen from the top of the plant. (Like squash, but with a completely different flower type.) Male corn flowers are the tassels at the top of each plant, which produce pollen, and the female flowers are the ears along the stalk, which contain ovaries. How is corn pollinated?Ĭorn is monoecious, meaning it produces separate male and female flowers on the same plant. Let's dive into the science behind how corn kernels form, and why cross-pollination matters. The way it’s pollinated works differently than any other plant in your garden. You know you’re supposed to plant corn close together in blocks, and not plant different varieties near each other - but why? Short answer: because corn is a weird vegetable, botanically speaking.

Garden story game seed pouch