OT growing sweet corn

MF294-4 · Jun 9, 2010

Lived on the farm all my life but we never grew sweet corn. We always ate field corn. Well you know how that tastes now. My question is, do all sweet corn varieties have suckers and do you pull or break the suckers off. My late FIL said you have to pull them. Does it help that much. What do commercial growers do?

ohiojim · Jun 10, 2010

we always pulled the suckers off,..would have to help, wouldn't be pulling nutrients from the stalk and ear...

PJH · Jun 10, 2010

I've heard it both ways. I've even pulled suckers on part of a row, and left the rest unpulled just to see the difference. No noticable difference to the eye on that experiment. One would think that removing the suckers would give more energy to the ear.

Do you remove the suckers on your tomato plants? I do, but again, have no proof that it improves anything.

You'll like the sweet corn, whatever you do, My favorite variety is Ambrosia.

Paul

keh · Jun 10, 2010

Pull suckers off. Sucker will try to make a small ear, making the stalk ear smaller. When laying by corn pile dirt around the base of the stalk to prevent suckers and help the stalk stand up. The commercial grower theory seems to be to plant the corn close and be satisfied with one ear per stalk hoping the plants close together will keep suckers off. I plant Merit corn and planting close dosen't work for me.

KEH

gitrib · Jun 10, 2010

I have raised a lot of sweet corn over tne years for canning factory and local markets. Never pulled a sucker. Canning factory used to pick by hand after ten days we would pull in with chopper and make silage. It ended when they went to machine picking.
gitrib

Anonymous-0 · Jun 10, 2010

We grow for our farm stand. We leave the second or suckers on, sell the first ear at the stand and the second to the canner. The canner don't care what the ear or size is just price the pay for a bushel. They bothh taste the same and the first ear always is full to the tip of the cob.

tjdub · Jun 10, 2010

I leave the suckers go. I don't think that they take away from the main plant, they form their own root system.

I've been growing Bodacious for the past couple of years, and it really likes to shoot tillers. I even tried planting it really close this year and it made no difference. I don't care, I like the small ears too.

sammy the RED · Jun 11, 2010

My favorite variety is Ambrosia.

Paul

Good stuff !

OT growing sweet corn

MF294-4

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ohiojim

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PJH

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keh

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gitrib

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Anonymous-0

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tjdub

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sammy the RED

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