City Sprouts World's Tallest Stalk Of Corn

City Sprouts World's Tallest Stalk Of Corn CROPS Miscellaneous 19-2-18 The world's largest corn plants took root in Canada last fall, thanks to city officials in Taber, Alberta, who are proud of the city's reputation as the "Corn Capital of Canada." "We take our corn very seriously here," says Taber City Manager Jim Montain. "We grow the sweetest tasting corn in Canada and we have thousands of acres of it. For four days every August we celebrate Corn Fest and there we name a Corn King or Queen to reign for a year. The winner is the grower who wins our best tasting corn contest." Only natural, then, that this community of about 7,000 wanted the world's largest corn stalks to celebrate its claim to fame. "We got the idea of putting up the two giant corn stalks at the edge of town and the local Kiwanis Club raised $30,000 to hire an artist to build them," says Montain. The artist was George Jaegli, a Cabri, Sask., farmer and welder. His previous works include big metal sculptures of palm trees, flowers, cacti, wheat plants and sun-flowers for his yard. From start to finish, Taber's corn project took Jaegli about a year. "It was my most ambitious project so far," he says. "I don't know of another sculpture of corn this size. "Ears are about 4 ft. tall, leaves range in size from about 4 ft. to 10 ft., stalk dia. goes from about 8 in. at the bottom tapering to about 1 1/2 in. at the top, tassels on top of the stalks are about 2 ft. high, over-all height is about 33 ft." he says. Silks are made out of brass wire, he adds. The corn was put up last November and has rapidly become quite a tourist attraction, according to Montain. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, George Jaegli, Box 448, Cabri, Sask., SON OJO Canada (ph 306 587-2932 or 587-2444).

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