Prosthetic corn husks?

I'm growing "Magic Manna Flour Corn" again this year, but unlike previous years I'm actually getting paid to grow it this time

When checking my patch today, I saw that the ears are getting bigger. And, as often happens with this variety, only a few of the ears have sufficient husk coverage. Some only have a few inches at the ends exposed, where others the whole ear is sticking out. I know from previous experience that these exposed ears will be the first to be lost to bugs, rot, and rodents. But I really need the income from this crop!

So, I have this wild notion about gluing leaves onto the existing husks, in order to cover the ears the way they should be covered. I don't know yet if I should use corn leaves, or if the bigger leaves from a different type of plant would work better.

Has anyone ever tried something like that before? Any ideas about what glue would work best? Other thoughts? Am I just being crazy?

If you are going to go through that much work, I would think using paper bags might be more efficient (As long as the pollination has already occured)

I thought about paper bags, but we've had so much rain this year that they'd disintegrate within a week.

These guys used old socks...not sure where to get so many socks from though.

That would be a LOT of socks! But it is another option to look into. Thank you.

Around here one can buy paper wrappers instead of using corn husks for making tamales. I don't know exactly why. They might work better as prosthetic husks for growing corn.

That many old socks is easy, the thrift stores that run off donations always have extras. They not only have the nice pairs they put out on the floor, but if you ask them nicely, they would probably toss a box in the sorting room for you, any mismatched or holey socks can be tossed in. Offer to pay for the box full of dead socks, they may or may not require it, but it's good manners to offer.  You'll probably need to get rid of the ones you don't want, but don't get too specific when you ask, they don't need to keep track of "only the ones like this." Assume you will sort out the ones you don't want on your own time.

I am getting dead DVD discs that way right now from a thrift store and a movie rental place. They toss any trash disks in the box, I come by every so often and empty the boxes. My phone number is written on the box in case I forget to get them and they want me to come. Neither place is charging me, it's just trash to them.

As far as socks on corn, seems they'd stay wet too long after rain, and start the rot. I didn't watch the video, perhaps they addressed that.

Nylon window screen?

Pearl Sutton wrote:

As far as socks on corn, seems they'd stay wet too long after rain, and start the rot. I didn't watch the video, perhaps they addressed that.

In the video, the ears had perfect husks to begin with. :/