Corn on Cob ear explosion! Infected?

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Hi all, pretty new to growing veg and first time growing corn on the cob.

All seemed to be going well but today I discovered one of the ears of corn has exploded and seems to be totally rotten. It looks like grey popcorn! Photos attached

Does anyone know what would cause this and what I should do now?

Many thanks in advance
 

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Corn Smut (Ustilago maydis)
Posted on August 19, 2011 by Durgan
http://durgan.org/2011/August 2011/19 August 2011 Corn Smut/HTML/ 19 August 2011 Corn Smut (Ustilago maydis)
Being curious about the edibility of Corn Smut, it was decided to give it a try. In my garden there were four plants infected so these were tried first. The fungus was cooked in butter with garlic and onions and a tomato. It tasted just fine, but really did not give me the flavor of the fungus. The “nut”,my own description, reminds me of a mushroom only grown on corn.
I went to a commercial corn grower and asked to check their field of sweet corn. About a pound of Corn Smut was collected and cooked. This time the Smut was cooked in butter and a splash of soy sauce was added. I ate the half pound, and found it quite good. There was a slight corn taste and the texture was slightly chewy. It would probably make a nice side dish for a typical meal if cooked in the manner described. Apparently the product is touted to be nutritious. There are many recipes touting how to cook on the Internet.
Huitlacoche (WEET-LA-KO-CHEE),(also cuitlacoche), corn smut is highly rated and consumed in Mexico, and is being touted as a nascent gourmet food to the USA.
The membrane surrounding the “egg” if not broken makes for a quality “nut”. Spores form when the membrane is broken, but this portion my be cut away or even utilized.The spores remind me of the billions of spores that emulate from a puff ball,when dry. I will keep some spores and use them to inoculate my corn patch in 2012 to determine if quantity and quality of the smut can be increased.

 
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Well that's not what I was expecting!

Definitely the same thing though. Thanks for the quick response!
 
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I never repeated eating it. I don't imagine it will be popular with the pizza crowd.
 

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