Corn transplants

[FDR]

I was wondering at what soil or air temperature you can transplant corn plants outside?

[TQ]

It's my understanding that corn can withstand light frost (which implies you can plant before the AVG time of last frost), but your question begs the question; why transplant and when you can sow direct?

LBJ

[FDR]

I had this wacky idea of starting transplants indoors and havin corn by the end of June, and then replanting another crop for harvest in September. I'm in zone 5 so it probably wouldn't work, but I'd like to try.

[The Cook]

The reference book I have says corn is very susceptible to frost so wait until all danger of frost is over and the ground is 60°F before planting seed.

If you are in a short season area and want to start indoors, use peat pots to avoid disturbing the roots since corn does not transplant well. I was talking to one local (zone 7) farmer about transplanting and he did it not only to get an early start on the season but because the birds did not bother the larger plants.

[Steve]

I'm in zone 3 and I transplant corn seedlings all the time. I used to direct seed some corn also but, here, that's pretty close to a waste of time. The transplants do so much better. Transplanting lets me try some of the better late varieties. I can even mature Silver Queen if I want to. I've done it. My frost free time is from about June 1st through late September. The only reason I make it to late September is because my yard is on the waterfront. The warm lake water gives me another 3 or 4 weeks.

Steve

[r m watkin]

I allways start corn off in the green house every year, it seems to transplant o. k. for me. three reasons are 1 the ground is not allways fit to plant anything early in the season. 2 by the time the ground is in a fit state to plant corn, the season would be to short. 3 there is a danger of frost early on in the season.

Richard M. Watkin.

indignation, and 50 percent envy."

[Steve]

I couldn't stand to pay for so many peat pots. I bought some "Speedling trays" close to 20 years ago. I've been using those for corn. There is a little root damage getting the plants out of the cells especially if the seedlings get big because I'm waiting for the garden to dry enough to run the tiller. I find they transplant very well. No problems. So, even thought peat pots are not required for perfect root protection, I think they DO need to be in individual cells to keep the roots from intermingling. Here, I find on the internet that speedling trays are still being sold:

I think the ones I use have 96 cells per tray. I plant 3 trays for my entire corn crop. I plant 3 or 4 varieties each year to spread the season. I don't freeze any, or anything.

Steve

[Mary McHugh]

Here in zone 6, I usually wait to transplant until April 15 (I'm late this year) and I use row covers if it will be frosty. I also try to work with the weather trend, for example, we've finally got warm weather here but the nights are still below 32 so I'll wait a bit more.

I have very good luck transplanting. Sometimes I use peat pots, sometimes I use the larger plastic cells (2" square).

I use a short season cold tolerant corn like Seneca Daybreak and I have corn right around July 4.

Mary

[omi]

This is the first year I have tried corn transplants. I set out the corn plants on Feb 28 when the soil temperature was 53 deg at 4 inches. The plants didn't rot and looked okay but really didn't grow much until about 4 weeks ago when the 4-inch soil temperature was 64 deg. and they really started to take off. But I believe the rapid growth had more to do with higher daytime temps (into the 90s) resulting in accumulating heat units and also more daylight hours as a result of being on the long-day side of the vernal equinox.

Our cooperative extension service keeps good weather and growing records for our area located at

believe other states maintain similar records.

Olin, Zone 9b