Corn, playing with double rows

[PhilaGardener]

Seems like pollination was low on those sparse ears. That bad weather when the Silver Queen was in tassel didn't help!

[Worth1]

You may consider not planting on mounded up rows and planting seeds deeper.

Not planting seeds deep enough is the number one cause of corn falling over.

[GoDawgs]

The seeds were planted on flat ground, about 1 1/2" deep. I guess it looks mounded because I pulled soil to the rows right before the pic was taken.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by GoDawgs

The seeds were planted on flat ground, about 1 1/2" deep. I guess it looks mounded because I pulled soil to the rows right before the pic was taken.

You should consider planting about 2 1/2 deep or so.
1 1/2 is the minimum and not deep enough in my experience.

Your roots will be too close to the surface and in many cases on the surface.
This will cause falling over and over all loss in production.
I see you have a loose sandy loam type soil so even 3 inches will help.

My first bumper crop of corn was my summer between the 2nd and 3rd grade.
Indian flint corn.
Did it all by myself.

You have plenty of time to experiment yet this year with a fall crop.
If it were me I would plant the corn in squares more but sorter rows for better over all pollination.

Worth

[GoDawgs]

Thanks for the input, Worth. Deeper it will be but it will have to wait until spring as that patch of garden will be planted to field peas when the corn stalks are pulled. I have tried a second corn crop before but both times it was a battle with ear worms (none at all in this current crop and I'm amazed at that!), corn smut and keeping enough water on it during the worst heat of the summer so I abandoned a second crop. One and done for me!

[GoDawgs]

Just for grins and giggles, here's a pic of the "furrow hoe" I had a friend make me from a piece of pipe welded to a tiller furrow attachment. The attachment belonged to an old Troy-bilt tiller I no longer have and it's replacement didn't come with attachments.

This thing will drag a 5-6" deep furrow so I can lay fertilizer under the corn rows, pull about 3" of soil over it with a hoe and then plant the corn. It's not quite balanced right but it gets the job done.

[JRinPA]

Great post, thanks all. I had a terrible year here with pollination, all the same supersweet. The weather timing for my first block was just plain awful and only about 25% pollinated well, and all was terribly buggy. Second block is great; must have hit just right. Third block I am hand pollinating this past week and weather was again awful, way too much rain. But I think I salvaged some by reading some about hand pollinating. I also have cantaloupe underneath that block, and while it sounds nice to save space, they are wild and it makes it impossible to side dress.

The last two years I had no trouble with pollination or growth, so this was a shock, but next year I think it will be more conventional. In another couple years maybe I'll have it figured out. I'm heading out now to hand pollinate some more; wanted it to be at 9am but everything was soaked again last night.

[JLJ_]

I enjoyed your experiments. Just replying because of your mention of Spring Treat. We grew Spring Treat for some years and liked it, then tried Bodacious (and some of its near relatives like Ambrosia). SE (Sugar Enhanced) hybrid like Spring Treat, but well, after a few years Spring Treat dropped off the list in favor of Bodacious. YMMV, but you might want to try it. Here's a link from its producer with data about it.



http://www.crookham.com/our-products...n/bodacious-rm



What we like is flavor, tenderness, and somewhat longer than some "prime" period making it easier to get a harvest of very good corn when schedule is hectic.


Most of ours goes as fast as we can move it from garden to boiling water ten minutes to ice water ten minutes to collander drain, to flat tray in deep freeze, then gets individually wrapped in plastic wrap (like Saran Wrap, but any decent brand that will seal tightly), then in zip lock freezer bags and right back into deep freeze. Any desired number of ears can be removed and boiled for ten minutes and be very close to fresh from the garden corn on the cob -- and we've used some after multiple years and found it still excellent -- no "cobby" taste.


For initial processing we put four to six ears in a two gallon pot of boiling water, depends on size of ears, but that's with pretty good size ears.



I don't think Crookham sells it directly, at least not for garden purposes, but it's available from lots of sources. Those who say something else they sell is "just as good as Bodacious" are, in my view, likely to have long and growing noses. [g]


But really, region and climate might make a significant difference in performance, just don't know.


Something to think about, anyway.

[GoDawgs]

Originally Posted by JLJ_

I enjoyed your experiments. Just replying because of your mention of Spring Treat. We grew Spring Treat for some years and liked it, then tried Bodacious (and some of its near relatives like Ambrosia).

Thanks for the recommendation. I've been thinking about Bodacious or maybe a bi-color like Honey and Cream to do one year in place of the Silver Queen just to mix things up a bit.

Spring Treat was chosen for two reasons. First, it will germinate in cooler soil so I can plant it earlier. Second, it's in the 65-67 day finish range where the others are in the 75 day range. This is important because I want to get the following second variety planted so it won't cross pollinate with the Spring Treat but will still finish before it gets too darned hot. They almost cross pollinated this year! Will add another week before planting the second variety next spring.

Originally Posted by JLJ_

Most of ours goes as fast as we can move it from garden to boiling water ten minutes to ice water ten minutes to collander drain, to flat tray in deep freeze...

Over the years we've experimented with a ton of different ways to freeze corn but for us it tastes best when blanched on the cob, ice bathed, cut off the cob, tray-frozen and bagged for the freezer. But that's a big area of discussion among folks, kind of like which mayo tastes best. LOL!

And as a convenient side effect, it takes up a whole lot less freezer space. Gotta have room for bags of green peas, field peas, okra, sliced peppers, etc too in the veg section. The rest is full of meat, etc.

[Garden/Arborist]

Interesting corn thread!

Attached is a photo of our Silver Queen planting. Six rows 3ft. centers with plant about 1ft. apart in the row. 50ft. rows. We had a nearby nesting pair of trashers do a lot of damage to the early small seedlings pulling them up and eating the kernel. I bet we lost 35% of our seedlings this way. Maybe 50% of those counted as lost regrew and matured at a slightly later date. We used no fertilizer on our corn crop other than urine mixed 5 gallons per 45 gallons of water and pumped using a sump pump from a 55 gallon plastic barrel. Our last side dressing was applied using a soil injecting probe but it was a little late in the life cycle of the corn to be most effective. It seemed to spur some unusual growth as the attachment points of the ears to the stalk elongated. We got about 380 ears total counting the sometimes good sized second ears and even a few edible third ears. Lots of the second ears did suffer from less than optimal pollination.

It's been almost thirty years now but Dad and I would grow Silver queen in double rows 1ft. apart and then a 4ft. walkway. We were using 'drip tape' and it cut the amount of tape in half this way. It worked out well.

We collect rain water and have a total of about 5,000 capacity. Next year we are going to plant Silver Queen on double rows 1ft. apart with 4ft. walkways. We plant in fairly deep furrows and do a lot of hilling by hand with a hoe. I enjoy it. My plan is to leave the soil in the middle of the 1ft. double planted row a little low so when we hand water there is a collection area and the water will not run as much into the walkway. Our sump pump pumps about six gallons per minute and we do all of our watering by hand wand unless soil injecting.

For 2019 we are going to play with more soil injection of the 10% urine/water mix going about 1ft. deep and paying special attention to our timing. We also soil injected our tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cabbage and squash once this year. We used no additional fertilizers.

I watched on YouTube some interesting information on field corn production. AgBros Phd or something like that. It seems the trend for higher yield is for closer spacing resulting on one main ear being produced and secondary ears being suppressed by closer spacings. We will work this into our corn plan for 2019.

Attached is four photos of our garden taken on 6-13-2018. We are in Auburn GA 30011. Lifetime member, SSE.

[SueCT]

Beautiful gardens!

[GoDawgs]

Wow, a gorgeous garden! When do you plant your corn? My Spring Treat went in 3/30 and the Silver Queen on 4/27. The Queen is almost always ready on the 4th of July even if it's planted before that. Seems like if the flag is wavin' on the 4th, the corn's ready. Any later finish than that and it seems like there's a lot of insect pressure and smut and the increasing heat doesn't help either. I've never had a successful later crop.

Originally Posted by Garden/Arborist

We used no fertilizer on our corn crop other than urine mixed 5 gallons per 45 gallons of water and pumped using a sump pump from a 55 gallon plastic barrel.

You must drink a LOT of water.

Originally Posted by Garden/Arborist

Next year we are going to plant Silver Queen on double rows 1ft. apart with 4ft. walkways.

Now, 4' walkways would really help with the hilling and fertilizing. It was really cramped in the corn patch with double rows and 32" walkways but it was the first time out with double rows and I was trying to maximize production. It actually decreased it. Live and learn. But I just checked on the garden map and 4' between double rows would give me four doubles next spring.

Originally Posted by Garden/Arborist

We plant in fairly deep furrows and do a lot of hilling by hand with a hoe. I enjoy it. My plan is to leave the soil in the middle of the 1ft. double planted row a little low so when we hand water there is a collection area and the water will not run as much into the walkway.

I enjoy hilling too. There's something peaceful about it. Good idea about the lower area between rows and I'll do that if I decide to repeat the experiment.

Originally Posted by Garden/Arborist

It seems the trend for higher yield is for closer spacing resulting on one main ear being produced and secondary ears being suppressed by closer spacings. We will work this into our corn plan for 2019.

I've always planted every 4" and then thinned to a final 8" spacing. That's probably the reason I've not ever had many second ears but the main ears are nice. Fewer skips too.

We're in the Augusta area.

[Garden/Arborist]

Originally Posted by GoDawgs

Wow, a gorgeous garden! When do you plant your corn? My Spring Treat went in 3/30 and the Silver Queen on 4/27. The Queen is almost always ready on the 4th of July even if it's planted before that.

I didn't write it down this year but I believe about 4/20 for the Silver Queen.

We appreciate the kind comments on the garden.

[Garden/Arborist]

An interesting corn:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...um=socialmedia

[GoDawgs]

Originally Posted by Garden/Arborist

An interesting corn:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...um=socialmedia

All I can say is WOW! Thanks for posting this. The possibilities on so many levels are mind-boggling.

But they didn't say how many ears were on those 16-20' stalks.