More than wine and grapes are getting planted at Maize Valley!

April 27

Kay Planting Sweet Corn

Here comes the sun!! WOW what a couple of days of awesome weather eh!! Looks like rain on and off this week so now is the time we are getting a lot of different things done on the farm. Purning grapes, pruning apple trees, plowing working ground and planting all at the same time.

This early sweet corn is a bit of a gamble because it is prone to frost if we get hit in mid to late May like we often do. But we have to roll the dice because if we miss it this High organic black muck soil produces some awesome sweet corn. Plus it can really accumulate heat units rapidly compared to our high ground soils and really move the crop along to early maturity and have great flavor and high quality.

See how much rain we get but we hope to get out and finish up “unhilling” and uncovering the graft unions on some on our last vineyard field block later this week.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Farm Stuff, Spring time things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “More than wine and grapes are getting planted at Maize Valley!”

Paul Ferris says:

April 27, 2009 at 5:05 pm

Frost in the Spring …

When you plan sweet corn this early does it take any frost at all or a really cold set of days?

Just curious.
–Paul
FunTSAR says:

April 28, 2009 at 1:51 pm

Hey Paul

The cold slows it down but as long as the roots stay dry or at least not water logged it will survive the warmer the better. Corn actually accumulates or takes in the suns energy durning the daylight hours then applies it, or grows at night. The measure of this is called “growing degree days”. A corn will be given a “maturity number” like you might say it is a 65 day corn. That means given an average amount of energy it takes on average 65 days till it is mature. If it is cooler it will take longer if it is warmer it can get done sooner. However if it gets much above 85 corn does not like it either can can shut down and wait for it to get cooler.

Corn can survive a VERY light frost depending upon how big it is, but it can’t take much. Unfortunatly the time of year when the greatest chance of frost exists is when it is pretty young and tender, 1-4 inches in height. We do spray a mild solution of zinc on corn in this stage if the forcast calls for frost. Usually towards the end of May and if you get a full moon and a clear night look out.

Thanks for asking, I forgot I knew all that!

FT