My Silver Queen Corn

I was late planting, for it was raining cats + dogs. It let up a bit and I planted. It didn't rain again for 3 weeks. It finally rained last week just as corn was tasseling. I see ears forming. Usually I have corn on July 4, may be end of month if it gets fertilized. (ignore the weeds, please)  Is anyone else doing corn in their SFG?

I'm trying popcorn in two boxes, with a single spaghetti squash in each one to cover the ground and sunflowers at the corners to help attract pollinators.

Careful; sunflowers can add chemicals to the soiil that can be bad for some crops. You might want them in a separate pot.

Did you add sunflowers to attract pollinators to the Corn? Corn doesn't need pollinators.

I am doing corn.  4 x 4 of Early Sunglow, 4 x 4 of Silver King, 4 x 4 of Silver Queen and just planted a 4 x 8 of Silver Queen.  My early sunglow is ready to pick if the caterpillars haven't eaten all the kernnels, Silver King is just starting to tassel and show a few ears, Silver queen was planted last.  I planted a different variety every two weeks.

Marc ... thanks for the advice!     
As I continue recovering from the medical procedure late last week, I'll see about potting them up separately in some of the spare nursery containers I have until I can get larger planters for them.


Sanderson ... I thought all plants needed pollinators to make edible things.  Clearly, this is how you know for sure when a new site member is a gardening n00b.
   

BeckieSueDalton wrote:
Sanderson ... I thought all plants needed pollinators to make edible things.  Clearly, this is how you know for sure when a new site member is a gardening n00b.
   

Corn is pollinated by wind blowing the pollen off the tassels onto the silks of the ear.  Or if no wind, just gently bend the stalk over and shake the tassel over an ear, or gently break off the tassel and use it to dust the silks, or as Sanderson would probably say, use a paint brush and hand pollinate them yourself.

BeckieSueDalton wrote:Marc ... thanks for the advice!     
As I continue recovering from the medical procedure late last week, I'll see about potting them up separately in some of the spare nursery containers I have until I can get larger planters for them.

A member of these forums had some pictures last year of big sunflowers growing in the tiny holes of concrete cinder blocks. Those are some tough, sturdy, undemanding plants! I thought those holes would be fine for marigolds, but ... sunflowers???

Don't worry, apparently they don't need a lot of space!

Though anything small will be more subject to heat stress, so maybe the insulation from the cinderblock walls helped a lot ...

yolos wrote:

BeckieSueDalton wrote:
Sanderson ... I thought all plants needed pollinators to make edible things.  Clearly, this is how you know for sure when a new site member is a gardening n00b.
   

Corn is pollinated by wind blowing the pollen off the tassels onto the silks of the ear.  Or if no wind, just gently bend the stalk over and shake the tassel over an ear, or gently break off the tassel and use it to dust the silks, or as Sanderson would probably say, use a paint brush and hand pollinate them yourself.

 Me and my paint brushes.  No brush in this case!!  Last summer, I gently shook the plants to sprinkle the pixie dust.

Becky, Everyone starts out gardening as a Noob. This Forum shortens the learning curve because everyone is so helpful.

yolos wrote:I... just planted a 4 x 8 of Silver Queen.

This is something I thought you might be interested in...oops, I mean I would be interested if you were interested!

It's the results of trials done on Silver Queen corn. I forget what state the research was done in.

It would be interesting to compare your growth rate either by actual days, or your own GDDs using the GDD calculator here.

Boffer, I will have to see if I can keep track of my corn growing.  I planted it on Sunday, 7/5/15.  I have it covered with landscape fabric just lying on the ground.  I am trying to keep the birds or something else from digging up the seeds.

Not doing sweet corn this year, but did grow Country Gentleman in original SFG back in early 90s....back then, it was 1 plant per SF, which for my limited space just didn't make sense for 2-3,ears/plant.   Although, it was pretty amazing as I recall.  

Now that the spacing has been adjusted, I might do some.  I would do cultivars that I can't get at the Farmer's Market!

I picked the first ear of my Silver Queen today. It has been so hot and dry I may not get many ears.

That looks like a pretty filled out ear.  I hope mine look like that.  We shall see.

Littlejo, That is a good looking ear.

Thanks, it had abt 1/2 inch on end not filled out. We're predicted to get rain this pm, so maybe the rest will be ready tomm.
Jo

Marc Iverson wrote:Careful; sunflowers can add chemicals to the soiil that can be bad for some crops.  You might want them in a separate pot.

Sunflowers were commonly planted along corn fields by the Amerind tribes around me.  I plant them and they also self seed in the corn.  No problems seen yet.
I have heard of sunflowers being Allelopathic but have yet to see any evidence of it.  I have a very nice example among the peas and cilantro and poppies this summer.  My concern would be that they get quite big and in a small SFG box take up valuable room that could be corn.

Little jo, that is a fine looking stand of corn and result  

SR, I grew Stowells Evergreen back in the 80s in my SFG, 1/sq.  Those old long season varieties are so big I suspect they need all that space.  If you try it again try out some of the smaller faster growing varieties for denser planting.

Yolo and Littlejo, what spacing are you using?  I think I remember that Yolo was experimenting with hilling the corn?

I have 2 old style SFG beds 3X 8 in the ground in corn this year.  I was using up seed...  so there is most of one bed in Hooker's Sweet Indian, a beds worth of Painted Mountain field, and a few quares in Sugar Dot.  All planted at the same time.  I do not care if field corn mixes with the sweet.  I will save seed from the upwind side which is the field corn.  We like the hominy in stews in the winter.  PMfield corn is fairly reliable here, the others are iffy at best.
This year I meant to open up the centers of each patch for better pollination in there.  Somehow while putting seed in the ground I got excited and planted abit thickly. 
There are sunflowers along one edge of each bed.  No tomatillos have shown up yet.

I planted 4 per square, 2 seed per hole. I read somewhere(stupid of me) that the 2nd 1 would sturdy the plants, keeping the wind from blowing over. Well, supposed to snip off 1 when they get to about 10 inches. I have a hard time with snipping, so, I have 3 areas that have SQ corn. It doesn't transplant  well so prob. won't get corn from the extras.

At 10 inches, I separated/transplanted extra corn, then I added about 2 inches of compost for extra fertilizer corn needs. I meant to put some mulch on top of that, but never got around to it.

I planted Country Gentleman(shoepeg Corn) one yr. It does not put on ears if crowded, plus, it got to be about 14 ft. tall!  I would have had to get a ladder to break the corn!

Jo

littlejo, nice looking ear there!  Turan, I have always veered toward the heirloom end of varieties, but am not opposed to branching out in the name of Sweet Corn!  Yeah, those old, 90 to 100 day cultivars were just forever to get any ears, and like I said, I think I did 4 plants/squares, and got 2 good ears and maybe a little scrawny one in addition per plant...just not worth it.  Especially where I am the Amish and Mennonites grow AMAZING corn around here and sell it at the Farmer's Market very reasonably.

Now, with the new spacing...might be worth doing some of the cultivars that I would otherwise not get to try!

boffer wrote:

yolos wrote:I... just planted a 4 x 8 of Silver Queen.

This is something I thought you might be interested in...oops, I mean I would be interested if you were interested!  

It's the results of trials done on Silver Queen corn.  I forget what state the research was done in.  

It would be interesting to compare your growth rate either by actual days, or your own GDDs using the GDD calculator here.

Boffer - I must be reading this chart wrong or it is way off.  If you use the following GDD calculator, then 1597 DD's per the above chart, if planted 7/4 like I did, then harvest would be 8/27.  That is 56 days.  DTM on the pack is 85 days.  So I am either reading the above chart wrong, or the calculator is wrong, or something is wrong, or maybe I am just wacky.  Go to the following link and enter zipcode 30205 with a planting date of 7/4 and let me know what you think. 

http://adstest.climate.weather.com/outlook/agriculture/growing-degree-days/30205

(I know number precision is your profession, but I'm taking shortcuts to make the figurin'  easier!)

2011/2011 DTM was 106 days  (21 days more than the seed pack estimate)
2009 DTM was 90

The number on the seed pack is a ballpark average with unknown parameters.  The trials listed in the chart were obviously cooler than those used to determine the number on the seed pack.

If the 2010/2011 trials in the chart were hotter by the same amount that they were cooler, then 85-21=64 days.

Using the calculator, I got about the same number you did for your projected weather, about 55 days.  So, if you were even hotter than 85-21, would your corn grow 9 days faster?  Beats me, but you're gonna find out!  Have you ever gotten any variety of corn harvest that fast?

According to the calculator, you've received over 300 GDDs since you planted.  Where is your corn growth at now?  Anywhere close to the five leaf stage?

This is a link that I've used for myself.  It used to be only for the PNW, but I just noticed that it appears to be nationwide now.  

http://uspest.org/cgi-bin/ddmodel.us 

It has a chart listing data for each day of the year, and also a graph showing actual/projected values for the year compared to past years.  I used  Fayetteville to compare numbers with the weather.com calc, and they were close.   Maybe you can find a station  closer to you.

You've already exceeded the GDDs  that I'll never get to see for an entire year!  
However, I am 24 days ahead of average, and  I've got corn tasseling already.  Unbelievable for this time of year!  

I'm still in the cave man mode. If my yarn "worm" is wet, it's raining. If it's horizontal, it's windy. If it's dry, it's sunny; stiff, it's freezing. Of course, down here there's plenty of sun to fudge a little early or late in planting.

boffer wrote:
Using the calculator, I got about the same number you did for your projected weather, about 55 days.  So, if you were even hotter than 85-21, would your corn grow 9 days faster?  Beats me, but you're gonna find out!  Have you ever gotten any variety of corn harvest that fast?

According to the calculator, you've received over 300 GDDs since you planted.  Where is your corn growth at now?  Anywhere close to the five leaf stage?

When I get home from work tonight, I will look at my records to see the actual previous maturity dates.  I have grown an early variety the last two years and it was earlier.  But I doubt whether the silver king or silver queen corn was ever that fast.  But this particular planting is much later in the summer than I usually grow so the GDD would accumulate faster and maybe it will be earlier.

My Silver Queen corn planted on 7/4/15 had 4 leaves last night when I examined it. I will try and remember to see when it hits the 5 leaf stage.

yolos wrote:

boffer wrote:
Using the calculator, I got about the same number you did for your projected weather, about 55 days.  So, if you were even hotter than 85-21, would your corn grow 9 days faster?  Beats me, but you're gonna find out!  Have you ever gotten any variety of corn harvest that fast?

According to the calculator, you've received over 300 GDDs since you planted.  Where is your corn growth at now?  Anywhere close to the five leaf stage?

When I get home from work tonight, I will look at my records to see the actual previous maturity dates.  I have grown an early variety the last two years and it was earlier.  But I doubt whether the silver king or silver queen corn was ever that fast.  But this particular planting is much later in the summer than I usually grow so the GDD would accumulate faster and maybe it will be earlier.

2014
Early Sunglow - planted 4/26, harvested 6/28 - 63 days - DTM per pack 63
Silver King - planted 4/26 harvested 7/4 - 82 days - DTM per pack unknown
Silver Queen  - planted 4/26, harvested 7/11 - 92 days - DTM per pack 85
2015
Early Sunglow - planted 5/4, harvested 7/10 - 68 days - DTM per pack 63
Silver King - planted 5/22, approx. 50% brown silk on 7/14
Silver Queen - planted 6/5 - no tassels or silk
Silver Queen - planted 7/4, 4 leaf stage 7/14

No, even the early variety took 63 days, but it was planted when the weather was a little cooler so who knows how fast the Silver Queen will mature after being planted in the hear of the summer.