Grow it! Grain
(Page 4 of 11)
November/December 1973
By the Mother Earth News editors
SEEDING
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Corn is usually planted one or two weeks after the average date of the last killing frost of spring. In southern Texas this means as early as the end of January. The Corn Belt usually plants sometime in May, depending on the area. Location of your farm and its land contours will be the deciding factors for planting time. Some farmers will plant sweet corn ten days earlier than everybody else in the vicinity because they have a southern hill much less exposed to frost than the surrounding area. For each two days of earlier planting they get one-day earlier mature corn. This means they can take their sweet corn to market as much as a week before the rest of the farmers. The price they get for it is much higher. So, of course, is the risk they take. One late frost could wipe out the crop. Still, there's more than just the grocery money to "first cornitis"...there's that certain irresistible pride in having the earliest sweet corn of the season.
Germination of corn seed is best at a soil temperature of 60° F. At 55° F. it is retarded, at 50°F. or below it is minimal. The more clayey the soil, the more important the temperature. If your soil is loamy or sandy, germination will be good at temperatures as low as 55°F. Soil temperatures can be measured directly with a thermometer. But unless you're experimentally inclined, just plant when your neighbors do; they know the timing instinctively.
Planting corn about an inch or two deep ensures it enough moisture. Planting it deeper has not shown any increase in yield. Generally, the heavier the soil, the closer to the top it should be seeded. Open soils need planting at the full two inches, since they give up moisture more readily. Plenty of organic matter in the soil is, of course, a plus.
Corn can be drilled, check-rowed, or hill-dropped. Drilled corn usually outyields the others and is the easiest, so stick with this method. Seeding varies from seven thousand to twenty-four thousand plants per acre. In most cases there is little yield increase with over sixteen thousand. Another big variable is the width between rows...usually forty, thirty, or twenty inches. Rows thirty to thirty-six inches apart give the best results, provided your soil is in good condition. If it's not, switch to wider rows.
Chances are you'll have someone else come by with a corn planter till you can get your own. In that case, don't be too insistent on having your own way. If he spaces his rows at forty inches, don't demand twenty inches or you might not get your corn planted. There will be a difference in yield, but only of 5 percent or so, a major factor on the large-scale farm but not on the small one. To boot, in some areas there are positive benefits to be derived from spacing as wide as sixty inches, so listen to the old-timer's advice.
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