"Chris" wrote in message
om...
This year is my first with a patch of corn. I have a raised bed (4
x
16) devoted to corn and probably planted the corn too close
together,
but, what the heck. The corn started to tassle and I had small
silkies coming from the stalk - life was good. Monday night,
though,
we were hit by a massive severe thunderstorm which flattened about
seven-eighths of my crop. What left standing just depresses me.
Now,
my neighbors with acre-big crops of corn don't seem to have suffered
much at all.

One possibility might be that your neighbors with their large
plantings are growing field corn, while you are growing sweet corn. In
my experience, sweet corn plants aren't as robust as field corn. Once,
three or four years ago, my corn plants grew extraordinarily tall and
strong and bore extremely large ears. These were supposed to be
Florida Staysweet, which I had successfully grown before. However,
this corn was tasteless, so I presumed it was field corn. I don't
think a hurricane would have blown that corn over.

In the distant past I grew Illini, which was the first variety of
supersweet corn. These plants lacked vigor, were short and weak and
very prone to wind. Since then, I've grown Kandy Korn and Jubilee,
with no wind problems. Perhaps I was just lucky, but both of these
varieties are more robust than Illini.

In short, the variety of corn you grow may make a difference.

Guy Bradley
Chesterfield MO
zone 6