Jul 23

Jul 23 Corn Problems and Solutions

We all want our corn to look like the photo above—plump ears of pearly white or yellow sweet kernels with that delicate, meltingly tender flavor that characterizes really delicious corn. This description is a riff on the catalog description of my ‘Sugar Pearl’ corn.

I’ve got some links for troubleshooting corn problems at the end of the blogpost. First some of my problems and solutions. I grew corn with little damage for about five years in my small coastal garden. Then last year I encountered new challenges.

Corn earworms ate their share of the upper portions of the ears.

Raccoons ate a half dozen ears one night and knocked over stalks as they pillaged the 4 x 5 foot corn patch with three dozen plants. It was a heartbreak.

This year birds pecked at my tender corn shoots and stole the silk for their own uses. I solved the corn earworm problem with a drop of food grade mineral oil as the silks emerged and spraying the silk weekly with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), an organic treatment.

When I made a makeshift bamboo cage and hung foil bird tape, the damage to the shoots and silks ceased. As the ears matured we wrapped the bamboo cage in bird netting hoping it might discourage raccoons. Enough about my corn woes. We are now harvesting fabulous ears of corn most every night for dinner.

You may be having problems with your corn or perhaps you’re considering planting corn next summer. Take a deep dive into this blogpost by Steve Albert, a Master Gardener and one of my favorite garden bloggers. Here are some of the problems he addresses in a concise and useful way.
Corn does not emerge
Seedlings are cut off near the soil surface
Ears only partly filled, silks are chewed short or clipped off
Incomplete kernel development; ears partially filled with ripe kernels; shriveled kernels
Worms eat down through kernels; ears look brown and eaten