[Beekissed]

Our soil can be late warming up, which can mean in a short summer that we don't get a crop

Most of us start corn in the warmth of house or greenhouse, and some of us think chitting can help

That's very interesting!  When do you typically get to plant corn there and when does the growing season end?  What types of corn do you use to accommodate your particular growing times?

Most of us plant in April.  I haven't even started mine yet as I have an unheated greenhouse.  I will chit them indoors them move them to the greenhouse.  They usually get planted out into the ground around the end of May.

Varieties sold here are bred to deal with the short growing season, but you can early and late season types.  I grow both.  You can be eating the early stuff by August in a good year and I was harvesting the late season stuff into October.  I'm right down in the south of England, so its worth taking a chance with a late season crop 

Here in this part of the states we normally sow directly around Mid-May to late May, down south they can sow in April.   I usually don't bother with the short day corn, which many in these parts do, but harvest in August/September.  I don't mind a late harvest as I've got tons of other things to put in the jar in August and would rather not deal with corn right then. 

 Last year was the first time I had trouble with corn sprouting...tried a new kind.  Went back to the old tried and true this year, as the section I had planted with it last year sprouted just fine while the other did not(Peaches and Cream).  Bad seed, that other.  I plant Ambrosia sweet corn and am never disappointed with the sprouting or the yield, no matter the weather conditions it always seems to give a crop. 

Thanks for being patient and explaining....it's always a learning process to find out how folks do things in other parts of the world.   

[Headgardener22]

I was always led to believe that one of the reasons for having "problems" with older sweetcorn varieties was lack of sunlight in the UK.

The old (but possibly no longer valid) adage was that you needed 100 days of sunshine to ripen sweetcorn. I don't know what its like in West Virginia but July is actually one of the wettest months in the UK so we struggle through the summer months to get enough sunshine. Hence we try to go it as early as possible.

Question: Do commercial farmers in the US put plastic over their field of sweetcorn when they sow? In the UK we get large areas of plastic over the fields when the farmers sow sweetcorn.

[Beekissed]

   Never saw such a thing!  So I'm guessing that's a no.....lots of sweet corn grown commercially in the next state over and they have perfect soil and land for growing corn~if we have to buy sweet corn, it's from Ohio.  Here in the mountains some places can be iffy about getting corn to do well....ours don't do as well as it used to do back in the 70s and 80s.

That must be a sight to see, all that plastic stretched for miles!   Is it just when it is really young and needing to sprout? 

I've never seen plastic OVER a commercial crop, but there's plenty of that going on UNDER some commercial crops here, like peppers and tomatoes.  Miles upon miles of black plastic in the fields with tomato stakes in perfect rows, at the same height.  It's something to see. 

 

[BabbyAnn]

That must be a sight to see, all that plastic stretched for miles!   Is it just when it is really young and needing to sprout?   

English "fields" don't stretch for miles LOL but think downsized to acres - I have seen a field covered in black plastic and for a while I wondered what it was until the plants grew big enough and I could see it was corn.  The areas where large scale agriculture takes place (so you can use combine harvesters) is usually reserved for the cereal grains such as wheat, barley and rye - sweetcorn in the UK is small scale (I'd say for the fresh vegetable market) in comparison to other countries where growing conditions are better suited

[Beekissed]

That all makes a lot of sense and probably is done like it is for the smaller commercial crops here of tomatoes and peppers...black plastic to warm the soil, suppress the weeds and retain moisture until the plant is big enough to make it well on its own. 

I'll have to see if they do that in the sweet corn fields here but I've not noticed it if they did.  They do a lot of irrigation of crops there next to the river, so the plastic likely keeps the soil in place as well. 

[Headgardener22]

I don't know where in Nottinghamshire you live BabbyAnn, but next time you're going down the M1, look at the fields near Leicester, there's usually acres of sweetcorn growing there and I seem to remember a program about a company in Hampshire who grows 50% of all the sweetcorn in the supermarkets in the UK. 

I looked at it close up once and the plastic is split so that the corn grow through once they've germinated.

BTW Beekissed, I saw your pictures in the thread on making cages and that explains a lot, if the date was right (mid June) you'd got what looked like 3ft tomato plants. Mid June and the frosts only stopped 2 weeks ago for me and I would only just be planting my tomatoes outdoors. Different climate, different behaviour.

[Beekissed]

I don't know where in Nottinghamshire you live BabbyAnn, but next time you're going down the M1, look at the fields near Leicester, there's usually acres of sweetcorn growing there and I seem to remember a program about a company in Hampshire who grows 50% of all the sweetcorn in the supermarkets in the UK. 

I looked at it close up once and the plastic is split so that the corn grow through once they've germinated.

BTW Beekissed, I saw your pictures in the thread on making cages and that explains a lot, if the date was right (mid June) you'd got what looked like 3ft tomato plants. Mid June and the frosts only stopped 2 weeks ago for me and I would only just be planting my tomatoes outdoors. Different climate, different behaviour.

That three foot tomato you saw was that size when I got it....my brother gave it to me and it's a cherry tomato plant he bought from a nursery(greenhouse, in other words)....those things end up 10-12 ft. tall when they are fully grown.     If you'll look at those other tomato plants they are only about a foot tall by June, having been planted in Mid-May from seeds sprouted indoors here. 

[Gardener and Rabbit]

That must be a sight to see, all that plastic stretched for miles!   

Here's a link to an article in our local paper showing what it looks like...the farmers here in West Lancashire make extensive use of plastic fleece. It ripples in the wind, and reflects the light, so from a distance it can look like a lake at first glance.

http://www.ormskirk.gb.com/ormskirk/news_list/%27Plastic_fantastic%27_as_farmers_go_for_growth-54952657.htm

[Trikidiki]

[quote author=Gardener and Rabbit link=topic=123049.msg1449042#msg1449042 date=1460402830
..... It ripples in the wind, and reflects the light, so from a distance it can look like a lake at first glance.......
[/quote]

So much so that lots of water birds crash land onto it and injure themselves thinking it is water.

[Beekissed]

That IS a sight to see!  Here they are more prone to use black plastic but I've never seen them use plastic for corn though.  Some places in this state and over in the next it's corn as far as the eye can see on the bigger farms, the rows so neatly planted it's a pleasure to see.   

[New shoot]

That is a sight to see   

You see fields of corn here, but nothing on that scale and I love the red barn 

[Jackypam]

Whereas my 20 sad bit of corn have turned green in their little plastic box and refused to grow at all. They were last years leftover seed though so maybe that's why. Still in date though.  Ah well. I'll plant some more peas maybe.  Or is there time to buy more and try again? 

[New shoot]

Plenty of time to start again    I haven't started at all yet 

[mumofstig]

Weather at this time of year means I don't plant corn out until mid-May - so plenty of time yet for sowing as it usually grows quickly once it germinates.

[Casey76]

I often have fields and fields of maize like the photos Beekissed posted.  Though in my area it is grown for biofuel and forage, rather than for eating. (therefore no sign of plastic or fleece at all!)