Let's go, Corn! Knee high by July 4th!

5/7/2020. I planted seeds (Glass Gen Corn, and Giant Indian Corn) on April 7th. Corn seeds should be sown directly. I have heard from so many people from this area that corn does NOT grow around here. and I don't see many people are growing corn around here either, so I believe it to be true. So I did some research. To get a good yield, you have to plant rows of corn! You can't just get a 6 pack of already germinated corn and plant a few on your garden. So I sat down, and sowed 6 rows. Each row is about 20 feet long, and the spacing is 3 feet between rows. Corn germinates really fast! I hope to harvest beautiful corn this year!

5/15/2020. Rule around here is if you can manage to grow corn knee high by July 4th, you will harvest delicious corn. So I am praying and checking everyday standing right next to these guys checking to see if they are getting taller. Do you think they can make it? Some of them look promising. The rest of them need to catch up!!!

5/20/2020. This corn is almost at my knee-high! I don't quite understand why some plants go much much faster than the other ones... Looking healthy! Let's go!!

5/27/2020. I don't know why a certain area of corn is growing much faster... But regardless, it's growing, and some of them are already way above my knee-high! I think it will all get there before July 4th! Maybe I will put the banner saying " Knee-high before July 4th!" on the fence and remind all of my corns about the rule! LOL

6/3/2020. My little corns are catching up! I guess there's nothing to worry about after all! 

6/10/2020. I can see the tassel is coming out from the biggest plant. This one is almost as tall as me! Surprisingly, one of my pear trees got snapped in the half from the wind, but these plants survived the last weekend's windstorm! How crazy is that?!

6/17/2020. Every time wind blows, it scares me. BUT, they are going strong! Started to see more plants with tassel!

6/24/2020 Look at the silks of this corn!! Looking like a 80's rock band! This is "Giant Indian Corn" The rest of plants are catching up with the biggest one I got! At this point, every single one of the plants are higher than "Knee High"!

7/1/2020. 3 days till July 4th! I am safe to say I reached my first goal. Now I need to figure out if I am going to be able to harvest corn this year? I sure do hope so! Some of the plants look like they are lacking in nutrients. I might do some science experiments! I must do some research first!  

7/8/2020. I still have not added anything to them yet... But they are growing! So many wasps and bees around this field and little scary to get close to them. Plus so hot outside! It has been over 105F lately!

8/24/2020
I was walking by the corn field this morning and one ear caught my attention! It wasn't the best looking one, but looked like it was ready for me to test crop. So I did! This is what I found! smaller and slightly deformed. Kernels were not perfectly lined up, nor the color was not what I expected. However, I did it! This is Organic Glass Gem Corn! Picture below is what I expected to see... Seems far from it, but as a first year, I think I did OK.

As I started to harvest all of the corn, I have noticed that every ear almost had different color kernels lined up inside of it. I am going to save some of the seeds and plant them next year to see if I get better results! 

I was not totally satisfied with my results, so I did some research to see why I had so many deformed corns this year. 
I found a great article by  Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service.

I understand that we are in desert, our summer is super hot, dry, windy, and miserable... But I don't like to blame everything on the weather condition. It gotta be something else!
​Seems like most of my corn ears had "Poor Kernel Set" caused by a lack of pollination, fertilization failures, etc... I was reflecting for the past few months. I saw a bunch of pollinators and wind blowing through and around my cornfield. So I would like to rule out "Lack of pollination" as a cause. However, I don't remember fertilizing them once I planted seeds, also this cornfield was a new lot that has not been worked on. So next year, I am going to fertilize a little heavy and see if I get better results! 



​

If you are interested in the article that I found during my research, please download below article "Abnormal Corn Ears" by Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service. (https://www.agronomy.k-state.edu/extension/documents/crop-production/Abnormal_Corn_Ears.pdf)

abnormal_corn_ears.pdf
File Size:	15838 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---