Very often, we found out that sweet corn bought from market didn't taste up to our expectations. They don't taste sweet as much as we expect. The fact behind this is that as soon as corns are picked up, the sugar from the corn flesh starts converting into starch. If you really long to test garden fresh, juicy sweet corn, you can give a try and plant it in your garden!
Learn to Grow Corn Easily
Planting and managing is quite easy. The most important things in growing sweet corn are proper planting, healthy soil and picking at the right time. Let's see some of the important tips, which will assist you in successful maintaining and harvesting of sweet corn.
Preparation of Soil
Fertile soil with humus and enough moisture is a must for growing sweet corn plants. There should be proper drainage, as these plants can't tolerate waterlogged soil. Preparation of soil is usually done at least one month prior to sowing corn. Soil should be plowed deeply and should be left for drying. This is done to prevent spreading of soil-borne pathogens from any of the previous crops planted at that particular site. This will also prevent nematodes if present. If given an option, prefer sites where crop rotation has been followed, as these sites have less chances of disease occurrence. Also, if possible, plant leguminous plants such as peas and beans prior to planting corns to have more nitrogen in the soil (leguminous plants enrich the soil with nitrogen with the help of their legumes).
Sowing and Plantation of Sweet Corn
For this plant to be healthy and have a good harvest, it is necessary to grow healthy and disease-free corn seedlings. So, care should be taken right from the sowing phase. The soil that is utilized for sowing should be rich in nutrients, otherwise supplement it with farmyard manure and multi-purpose compost. First thing to be taken care is sowing the right variety of corn, since for each corn type, the requirements are different, for example, "sugar-enhanced" and "super-sweet" corn can't tolerate low temperature condition, so they should be planted only after frost when temperature is around 17C, whereas normal "sweet corn" can be grown early even when the atmospheric temperature is around 10C. Also make sure that the corn seeds are fungicide-treated and are of resistant variety.
Sowing can be done outdoors or in a greenhouse. But sowing in greenhouse is advantageous as it is easy to maintain the optimum plant requirements. Sowing should be done preferably in late April. Sow corn seeds at about 3-4 cm deep and cover them with soil. Watering should be done thoroughly once after sowing. When the seedlings reach a height of about 2 cm, choose the healthy seedlings for transplantation. Before planting in the exact site, acclimatize the seedlings in outdoors by keeping in shade. Now the acclimatized seedlings can be transplanted in garden soil.
Growing sweet corn can also be achieved by planting the seeds directly into the soil. Planting by seeds or seedlings should be done about 20-30 cm apart and 50-60 cm between rows. Since corn is wind-pollinated, there should be at least 100 plants per block to enhance the fertilization process. Less corn plants per block hampers the pollination and results in short cornstalks and fewer cobs. Watering should be done regularly. Too less or too excess watering always leads to disease problems.
Taking Care of Sweet Corn
Sweet corn need less maintenance as compared to other crops. However, it is important to take care of certain things such as keeping the soil moist and removing weeds regularly. If soil is dry, you will notice curling of leaves. These should be taken care of by watering at regular intervals. When the corn plants reach a height of 50 cm, watering frequency should be once in a week. Also, this is the time to apply external nutrients in order to have a good harvest. Usually chemical fertilizers are not preferred since they have side effects in the long run. Therefore, instead of using chemical fertilizers to your garden sweet corn, you can add eco-friendly organic fertilizers by composting kitchen garbage and food leftovers. Depending upon the cultivars, ear (female inflorescence) and tassel (male inflorescence) will develop at a certain time and pollination will take place. Gentle shaking of the plants will increase the chances of fertilization and help in uniform development of the kernel.
Harvesting of Sweet Corn
Allow the corncobs to grow for about 20 days after the first silk strands appear. When the cob attains a certain length, you can check whether the corncobs are ready for harvesting or not. If the kernels produce a white milky juice when being punctured, it is confirmed that the corncobs are ripe. Harvest the ripe cobs until it becomes too late. Normally corncobs are harvested within 70-100 days of plantation time, depending upon the variety and the weather conditions.
Diseases and Pests of Sweet Corn
As long as there is a practice of crop rotation, nutrient balance and proper watering, this plant is rarely damaged by diseases and pests. However, diseases do affect when any of the practices has been disturbed. Let's see some of the commonly occurring diseases.
Important fungal diseases of sweet corn include rust, smut, leaf blight, root and stalk rot, seed rot and seedling diseases. Rust is one of the common diseases developed due to less moisture and low temperature, whereas smut disease is developed due to excess water and high temperature. Corn leaf blight disease is developed mostly due to monoculture of corn for subsequent years. Overcrowding and poor drainage may result into root and stalk rot disease. Seed rot and seedling disease spread through poor quality seeds. In addition, there are nematode diseases, viral diseases and bacterial diseases whose exact causes are not known. The common sweet corn pests are wireworm and white grub. Other pests include flea and sap beetles, cutworms, corn borer and corn earworm.
Diseases and pests of sweet corn can be controlled by following cultural practices such as planting improved and suitable varieties of the particular area, regular removal of weeds and affected plant parts, proper irrigation and avoiding monoculture as far as possible.
Experience of picking up ripe corn right from our garden is really satisfying. Also, one can try on many of the mouth-watering corn recipes with the freshly picked sweet corn. Let me mention some of the corn recipes, which you can try and explore: cornbread salad, corn cobbler, corn patties, corn casserole, corn salsa, corn salad, scalloped corn, corn fritters, corn pudding... and what about popping corn????
