Poor Sweetcorn

[jane E]

I had the worst ever crop of sweetcorn this year - fed the whole lot to the pig - nothing ripened.
Did anyone else have as bad a crop?

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Jane E, mine has been pretty bad too, just one cob per plant.
But mine was due to lack of water and competing with pumpkins.

[Johnboy]

Hi OH,
The Fodder Maize was affected in growth by the drought but the crop a short distance from me had an average of 5 really large cobs. I actually had one for my supper one evening last week (nicked with permission). It was a bit tough but full of flavour but I suppose beggars cannot be choosers.
It seems that I was just in time as the crop was cut on Monday and the field has been ploughed and the next crop of winter cereal sown yesterday.
The good point about fodder maize it that there is a total exclusion of weeds and with the rain yesterday of 1.5 inches was not enough to call off the ploughing and other operations. I bet that cereal crop will germinate within the week.
JB.

[glallotments]

Our sweetcorn was pathetic. The latest planted hardly grew at all. WE have had exceptionally dry conditions though so I put it down to that.

[jane E]

We had such a dry summer that wide cracks have opened up in the field behind the house, in parts of our house and throughout the garden. I always mulch, so this hid the dryness of the soil but this year did nothing to combat it. I had to water but it doesn't really compensate with some plants and sweetcorn was obviously one of those. On the reverse side, I've had a lovely crop of Crown Prince squashes and the brassicas have been the best I've ever had. You can never tell, can you?

[John]

Hello Jane
When you say nothing ripened, was this a result of poor pollination? I assume you planted in a block formation.
There was a posting when this problem came up some time ago which suggested staggering the sowings by about 2 weeks. This helps to ensure that there are mature male and female parts around at the same time. This is more useful when using F1 varieties. I meant to try it this year but didn't get round to it but finished up with a reasonable crop from a single sowing. I always keep the corn patch well fed and watered.

John

PS I love fresh corn on the cob but sadly the old teeth are no longer up to job! So a cousin sent over a simple corn creamer/cutter tool from the States. Its great you just pull the tool over the cob to release the corn.

[Bal]

This was the worst year for my sweetcorn. Absolutely no taste

[Colin_M]

Interesting that several of you mention water.

Unless we're using special varieties over here, surely sweetcorn grows in countries with drier summers than ours? Was some of the poor performance due to insufficient warmth & sun this year?

[Johnboy]

Hi Colin,
I am very inclined to agree with what you have said. What has amazed me is that the Fodder Maize, which in my experience, has had more cobs than usual and they all seemed to have ripened. I seems hereabouts a minimum of five good cobs per plant.
JB.

[Clive.]

Poor Sweetcorn here and at work too....leaves went sickly striped.

Locally where my work colleagues father is farm foreman they grow maize for combine harvesting and have a fancy header for the job on the Claas combine. I believe they have combined some recently but still have some to do. Strange scene last year with a combine in a frosty field with I believe snow on the Wolds behind....

Clive.

[glallotments]

Interesting that several of you mention water.

Unless we're using special varieties over here, surely sweetcorn grows in countries with drier summers than ours? Was some of the poor performance due to insufficient warmth & sun this year?

When we have seen sweetcorn growing in France they have been watered each day almost all day using giant water cannons though. One year when we were on holiday it was particularly hot and dry and the corn was being ploughed back in as it had turned brown and shrivelled.

[Westi]

As per most years didn't get a chance to taste mine. Only got 1 cob per plant of a decent size on about 80% of them, and since found the other 20% were dangling over a mole trail, but the mice beat me to all of them!


Westi

[oldherbaceous]

What a shame Westi, better have a glass of wine.

[Nature's Babe]

We had drought in this corner of the south east and I garden on clay soil,which soon cracks and bakes in drought I garden synergistically which works with nature and the soil is mulched, leaving no bare soil, this helps prevent evaporation and improves soil condition without the need to dig, weeds are suppressed, and much easier to remove.
For those of you suffering drought, this really saves the day drought or flood, no cracked soil here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSKilNcmoVE

[glallotments]

We had drought in this corner of the south east and I garden on clay soil,which soon cracks and bakes in drought I garden synergistically which works with nature and the soil is mulched, leaving no bare soil, this helps prevent evaporation and improves soil condition without the need to dig, weeds are suppressed, and much easier to remove.
For those of you suffering drought, this really saves the day drought or flood, no cracked soil here.

I think what works in a garden can't always be applied to an allotment plot. If we were to mulch all our plot it would cost a fortune as we couldn't make enough of our own compost or leaf mould or anything else for that matter

Also in a garden you can more or less please yourself. Any signs of someone not 'cultivating' their soil can be frowned on in allotment circles and lead to a stiff letter. In gardens you also have a bit more control over weed spread on an allotment site you only have to have a few people leave a few patches of weeds to seed and you have weeds coming up all over.

As for weeds being easy to remove - we have had our plots now for years and still have some weeds that wouldn't really suppressed by a mulch that need digging out - I'm referring to brambles and the like.