[azubah]

BostonInbred..which month do they sow the seed?

I am wondering if I could dig a trench and sow in the bottom of that and cover it over with fleece to keep it warm. I would remove the fleece when the plants reach it and eventually earth them up.

[BostonInbred]

Good question.

Its usually selling by the roadside late august, so work if back from that. Whats sowing to harvest for sweetcorn ?

[Salmo]

The maize grown for sweetcorn is a sweetcorn variety and there is plenty grown in the UK.

It is drilled from about mid April so that by the time it comes up the frosts are finished.

The varieties grown for cattle feed are much higher yielding. The cobs/leaves/stems are all cut up and mixed together to make silage to feed the cattle on in the Winter.

[Mark-S]

Forage Maize is a different crop to Sweetcorn in that as the name implies it is grown for forage or silage if you like.

Sweetcorn varieties have double the sugar chromosomes in them BUTT they do need more sunlight and solar heat to allow good sugar production. They can can be grown as high up as the Southport area, although not as succesfully as 'darn sarf'

The forage maize grown until plastic is grown for the cobs not forage. Harvested by combine in November when teh cobs are like bullets.   Forage maize is sown in late April when the soil temperature reaches 8 degrees.

In short they are not different 'species' but they may as well be.