Corn Puberty

The above corn stalks have been browsed by deer. Notice the straight cut made by the deer's knack for rolling the leaf with its tongue before chomping off the tip. Because the special tassel leaf has been taken, these stalks will not tassel as those behind have.
Pollen shed starts from the middle of the corn tassel a few days before silk emergence and continues for about a week, typically between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., after morning dew has dried.
Beginning at the middle of the tassel spike, the pollen containers burst to release the pollen to the wind, but most settles within 20 to 50 feet. Silks are covered with fine, sticky hairs that serve to catch and anchor pollen grains, which starts the growth of a pollen tube channel down the silk within minutes, after which the pollen soon enters the protected female flower (future corn kernel) within 12 to 28 hours.
Pollen rarely fertilizes the silks of the same plant. Under field conditions 97% or more of the kernels produced by each plant are pollinated by other plants in the field.
Now is the time.