Central Pa. farmer's corn crop yields 4-headed ear

[August 15, 2013]  HANOVER, Pa. (AP) -- When farmer Ben Klunk tells people about the mutant corn he found, they're all ears.

Klunk said Wednesday he discovered an ear of sweet corn with four heads on his central Pennsylvania farm and has been keeping it in his refrigerator.

Klunk said that when he pulled the corn out of the crop, he initially thought there was mud holding it together, but his wife said that wasn't the case.

"It started out as one," Marie Klunk said, "and then it split, and then another one split."

The farmer, who's 81, said he's never seen corn multiply in such a way: He'd never found a double- or triple-headed ear of corn, let alone a quadruple one.

"And I've pulled a lot of sweet corn!" he said.

The Klunks said they don't plan to eat the corn, which was pulled from their farmland in Hanover, 20 miles southwest of the state capital, Harrisburg, and was first reported by The Evening Sun newspaper. They said if it stays fresh for another 10 days they'll enter it into a contest at the South Mountain 4-H Fair.

But the Klunks aren't sure it'll last that long in the refrigerator and suspect it's already turning. If that happens, they said, they'll just throw the mutated husk away.

[Associated Press]

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