What is Mature Corn

You can certainly tell corn is mature when the ears point down instead of up. If the ears have not dropped, you need to pick an ear and check the kernals. If the kernal is black layered then it is mature. You may have to flick off the tip to see the black. The picture shows one mature ear and one not mature. In the immature ear, you can still see a milk line. That is, the corn is still adding starch to the kernal. Last year some of the late planted corn froze while it was still not mature. 95% of the corn I saw Saturday was mature. The immature corn came from a field that still looked very green.