I'm tring to grow Temptaion variety corn this year. The stalks are maybe 1 to 1.5 ft. tall and half of them are flopping over. I've tried to mound dirt around the base and prop them up but it doesn't seem adequate. I have them growing in 2 stalks per place, rows a foot apart and plants 8 inches apart.
Did I not plant the seed deeply enough?
Is having two together a cause?
Should I just pull them and start with new seed considering the season is still young? Maturity is stated as about 60 days.
Not relevent.
It could be a factor (especially in making it harder to hill them up). But too much nitrogen vs. potassium might also be a factor. Corn is a grass, and needs plenty of nitrogen, but for strong stalks and disease resistance it also needs potassium.
The weatheris also an important factor. One violent storm can wreck havoc.
There's also a possibility of stalk rot. And heavy infestations of corn root worm make the plants more likely to lodge (fall over).
I'd pull to one plant per spot and, if the plants you pull look healthy (other than the leaning over) try hilling them up again. You can be pretty aggressive with the hilling up.
I sometimes use compost to hill up the corn if a bad storm knocks some down. (Later in the season, I might use posts and run string to hold them up.)
I added plenty of 10-5-10 granular fertilizer when I planted the seed.
I pulled a stalk and didn't find anything unusual.
I'm afraid of pulling them at this advanced stage. I think that I'd wind up disturbing the remaing stalks too much. I'll try and experiment with a couple first and see the results.
Thanks Pat. I'll get some soil and try the mounding.
Your spacing seems way too close to me. I try for 14 inches in any direction to another plant. Even at that 14 inch spacing, mine seem a little crowded. At that spacing I get only 1 ear of corn per plant, even from corn varieties fully capable of making 2 good ears. I often get 2 ears from plants at the edge of the patch where they are only crowded on one side. Having said all of that, since your corn is only 12 - 18 inches tall, the crowding shouldn't even be affecting it yet. Some kinds of corn just tip over easier than others. Since I grow at a windy waterfront location, I remember which ones to avoid in the future. I usually try a few kinds each year. Last year I picked up some "Alpine" corn from a store seed rack just to give it a try. It was good corn. Nice taste and it stayed standing through a storm that flattened some of the other kinds. I'm growing a little of that one again this year.
Steve
The spacing of 8 incehs and two stalks was what the Stokes people put on the package. Though to be fair, the row spacing I hvae is a closer than they suggest.
I did have a lot of corn fall over from windy conditions last year. I had to tie them up to thin bamboo supports. What a pain.
I did read a method of using a bottomless styrofoam cup. You submerge the cup (minues the bottom disc) in the dirt, so the empty cup forms a hole (like the cup hole on a golf green). You plant the corn in the dirt at the bottom of the hole. When it grows significantly above the ground level, you pull the cup out and fill the hole. Has some added beneift over omounding since a mound can shift where as the ground won't as long as the hole was firmly filled in.
DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,
I'm not familiar with this variety, but as you know that corn has very shallow roots, so it can't be planted on any kind of ridge or hill with ease. If anything, corn should be lower than the surrounding ground. However, assuming your garden is flat, then it sounds like you've got weather. Winds that seem fairly mild to humans can take out a few rows of corn.
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