Not all plants have a use for the ones that for whatever reason don’t produce fruit. In the case of field corn, any stalk without an ear is prime for turning into corn syrup.

Cut down an earless stalk at the base and give the wound a lick. Hopefully you taste a pleasant sweetness. That is the sugars destined for the ear that had nowhere else to go. If you don’t taste sweetness, wait a little longer and try again. When they are ready, snip off the tassels and tear off the leaves.

Now there are two ways to go from here. The first is the low tech way- snip the corn stalks into smaller pieces, crush them well to access the juices, then put in a pot and add water to cover and boil to extract the sugar. Boil the water down until it’s sweet then strain out the solids. Finish boiling into a syrup. 

The more high-tech way is to use a sugar cane press where you simply run the stalks through the press and the resulting liquid can be boiled down into syrup.

In both cases the sugar to water ratio is similar to making maple syrup (about 40:1), therefore you’ll need quite a few stalks to make a decent amount of syrup.

The more high tech way is to use a sugar cane press where you simply run the stalks through the press and the resulting liquid can be boiled down into syrup.

In both cases the sugar to water ratio is similar to making maple syrup. (What is that like 60:1 if I remember correctly.) Therefore you’ll need quite a few stalks to make a decent amount of syrup.