Attacked by the corn smut

This is our corn from our garden - not a very nice-looking thing after being attacked by the fungus called corn smut. The interesting thing is that this pest is a delicacy in Mexico, where the infected large corn kernels are cooked and eaten as huitlacoche. That Spanish words comes from an Aztec word meaning raven's extrement. Nice! You can buy it canned too. Some recipes are here. The infected kernels start out yellow, become large and engorged, then turn bluish, and eventually they blister open and lots of black spores are coming out. People eat them before they sporulate. I pickled them in lab ethanol instead, to use in teaching in mycology and ethnobotany. Oh, all the nice things you can find on your garden. Even if it is kind of annoying that some crops 'fail', it is interesting to see all these unexpected events. I think our garden is a pest-haven after all problems we have had this year, but maybe it is because I refuse to spray with pesticides and fungicides.