1 Chop the corn up right away after harvest while it is still green and cuts easily. 2 You help pollinate corn by shaking the stalks when the silks first appear, those stalks will shed a cloud of fine dust during about 9 AM to 6 PM.

Not sure, does the "fragrans' (corn plant Dracaena) have stripes. I know the "massageana" does, as well does the "warneckii" and the "marginata" also. As Karen pointed out, mostlikely cause is you are not giving the plant sufficient light. Dracaena can take less than good light. But a stronger light will make your plant grow stronger, with tougher leaves and better retention of moisture. AT this time that can be difficult because the sun is just coming back north but will take a couple months yet before it gives plants what they like. In this regard though, try to give the plant as much sun as you can by giving it exposures from the west, south....or if you have to, the east. A northern location just will not do the plant any good. Dracaena is one of the plants that reacts to fluorine in the water. So try to let the water, if its out of the tap, sit for 24 - 48 hours prior to watering. Fertilizer should ahve low ratio of phosphate. If superphosphate is part of any feeding program, withdraw that. Perlite too contains amounts of phoshurus and so should be not so much part of any potting soil you use for dracaena.

How long ago did you plant it and how tall is it now? does it have tassles at the top of the plant? If so, how long ago did the tassles form? If within the last week or so, grab & shake the plant to see if the tassles are shedding pollen. Look anywhere from 18-36" up from the ground for silks, they branch out off the main stalk above a leaf. You need to get pollen from the tassles to fall on the silks. If you have no tassles, then it's not old enough yet. Tassles usually come a week or 2 before silks. If you have tassles but no pollen shakes out, it's past its time. You probably have a few plants bunched together--they probably planted 2 or 3 seeds and maybe they all sprouted. Nothing you can do about it now. It's not too common to find corn at nurseries. The only time I've seen them, they were in 6-packs, with 2 seeds in each cell. Don't worry about the gnats. You can usually tell the difference between gnats & aphids--gnats, even dead ones, you'll see clear wings that may shine in the sunlight. If you don't have tassles yet, there's still hope, though if you can successfully pollinate the silks, you will probably only have 1 ear (per plant, so you may get 1-3 ears total.) Each silk represents 1 kernel on an ear, so get as much pollen onto the silks to get a full ear of kernels. It only takes 1 grain of pollen needed per strand of silk to form 1 kernel. Sometimes I even grab a leaf that has lots of shed pollen on it and bend it to where the silks are and wipe the silks with the pollen on the leaf. Hope this helps. Mark

Cracked corn has some kernels that were small enough to not get cracked but they are still viable corn seed. Those will sprout. Not to worry, though, because you mow them off and they die. Wish bermuda was that easy to knock out. Are there any negitives to be on the look out for when applying cornmeal to the grass? It does not flow through a spreader very well. Being an organic grain it absorbs moisture easily, clumps, and does not fall through the spreader. I scoop it out of the bag with a 2-pound coffee can. That way I know I have about 2 pounds of corn meal. Then I scatter it like I was feeding chickens. Two pounds will cover about 100 (10x10) to 200 (10x20) square feet. I can 'eyeball' where my can of corn should cover and scatter freely. As far as storing it, I use up all I have in the fall to avoid storing it over the winter. If you store it, by spring time the invisible bugs that come with the corn meal will have eaten about half of what you have left. Those bugs make a great organic fertilizer but it is an icky thing to deal with. What is the nitrogen of this? Pet peeve alert. Snide remark to follow: Don't know. Don't care. Now if you want to talk about protein, it is on par with coffee grounds as providing about the lowest dose of protein of all the ground grains. The nitrogen in protein is the ultimate source of the nitrogen that the microbes provide to the plants. The problem is not all protein is the same. The protein in blood is available to plants much more quickly than the protein in feathers and hair. The protein in nuts, seeds, and beans seems to hit a happy medium of protein and nitrogen availability. Here is a link that might be useful: NPK of organic stuff for those who cling to tradition