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How close.....

Never really thought much about it. It was more a matter of how straight you can drive without taking it out and set it far enough apart so you don't.
 
When the corn is small you can get about as close as you want. We used shields with a covered top for small corn to avoid throwing dirt on top of the corn. Those shields looked like a miniature machine shed. I don't have them anymore but as best I can remenber rhey were about 6 inches wide. As the corn grows you will have to distance your cultivating accordingly. Corn has a root system that forms a clump directly below the stalk. Some will claim that corn sends out lateral roots that reach way out but that is not backed by evidence collected in the field by leading universities and seed companies.
 
That's what I was wondering about. I like to cultivate as close as possible on my nongmo corn.Also,when corn is about 2-3 ft tall,I like to put on large furrowers and 'lay by' the corn. the furrowers cover small weeds at the base of the corn,and leave a large enough 'water mark'/furrow to last the season.
 
That's what we did years ago. We usually put sweep shovels on and went faster and threw dirt up around the base of the plants.
 
I always went as close as I dared to, later when corn was high I went faster to lay by. I don't remember that it ever damaged the corn then.
 
We used to list our corn. That means that the corn was planted in trenches about 8-10 inches below the the average surface level of the soil. Excess soil was ridged between the rows. First cultivation involved in scouring the ridges to eliminate weed germination. These required a specially designed cultivator referred to in our part of SD as an eli but in other areas as a go-dig. That resulted in a limited amount of soil to fall in the trench to somewhat cover weeds that tended to germinate slower than the corn. Next cultivation was to flatten the ridges that eliminated weeds on the ridges & cover weeds in the trench. The corn was approximately 4-6 inches tall at this point. Final cultivation began when corn was beginning to canopy and resulted in ridging the soil around the base of the corn. Usually no chemical control for unwanted plant invasion was needed as appropriate tillage at the right time eliminated the need for chemicals. An eli was able to be adjusted to do this job quite efficiency.
 

I forgot to put the plug in on a sprinkler line when I first started growing sweet corn. The pipe was between two rows and washed out the soil about 18" deep, what I saw was a hammock of roots between the 42" rows. This was not field corn, so I am not sure if it compares...but I remember as a kid my dad was cultivating pretty deep in semi arid conditions...he may have been doing more harm than good. I use this home made cultivator on my little Allis G to cultivate my corn, only going an inch or two deep. I feel it does not disturb that root mass and also does not bring up new weed seed that was too deep to germinate. Over the years I have gotten many compliments on how my fields look.
mvphoto75572.jpg
 
Last time through, you want to turn the legs so the front of the shovels turn in toward the row more so it'll roll the dirt toward the corn.
 
We cultivated 5 to 6 inches away from row center and 3 inches deep with single sided sweeps and floating guards when less 6 inches tall. When more sturdy to 10 inches tall, wi left the shields off, then from there up we widened to about 8 inches each side of center and threw soil onto the stalks some. never deep, as it did no better keeping the weeds dry. Jim
 
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