A Question for the Farmers

[Steve Frazier]

Canned corn has been a staple at our table since I was a kid. I remember it being sweet and crisp, especially Green Giant niblets. The past few years though, it seems we can't buy a can of good corn no matter the brand. It's not nearly as sweet, lacks flavor and seems overly mature in texture.

Have they bred out the features I liked most about corn? I can still get great sweet corn locally when it's in season, but have the commercial producers sacrificed flavor and texture for yield?

 

[RonG]

I must say that corn is my favorite vegetable in just about any form.I had not noticed the degradation in flavor so much in the kernal corn as I use a lot of cow butter to mask the flavor maybe but I prefer creamed corn which I eat cold.There is a wide range of quality among the different brands and the price has little to do with the product either.
The best I have found is the Stop and Shop store brand for creamed corn,I consider corn my desert with a meal.
That is an interesting question considering the changes being made to seed these days.Ron G

 

[Squizzy246B]

My family has grown corn off and on for years. Its planted following the potato harvest and once picked the fodder gets plowed in and seeded with mustard. You can get corn to really produce if you wind it up with Nitrogen..about a tonne per acre and more several times during the later stages off growth. This turbocharged corn is pretty tasteless but taste has nothing to do with it....its all productivity and appearance. Taste went out the window when farming became a business.

 

[stumpjumper83]

Well you can always tear up the backyard and grow your own. Besides fresh corn is always best.

 

[KMB83]

steve,

there are two main types of sweet corn, not to be confused with commercial corn! there are sub sets underneath like yellow, bi-color, white, etc

one type is the fresh market varieties, that sub groub has some different desires: the guy who raises fresh market in GA, FL, CA and then ships to the north, he wants a fresh market that will still stay sorta fresh after transportation, taste is not as big of deal if it looks stale in a day. the other component of fresh market is the road side vendor, he wants everything to revolve around taste. he picks it, and brings it straight to the consumer, no desire for freshness/productivity/easy of processing. there are varieties to meet both needs.

the second group are the processor varieties. these are selected for attributes like: yield, kernal depth (since its a automated knife cutting the kernals), storability, etc. most products in agriculture are better if grown fresh and sourced direct. but city folk sometimes dont know what fresh can be like so they are content with what they get. one side note, sygenta at one time was working on breeding a tomato that took the shape of a can so it could easily be cut by taco bell's dicer, you tell me how much taste factored into that buying desicion? not necessarily a bad thing that these guys are very efficient, that is what the consumer has demanded, not taste.

the actual varieties themselves are generated by a relatively small group of companies and most are propietary.

 

[Orchard Ex]

Mmmmm.... fresh corn. Steve, try Green Giant "Super Sweet Yellow and White" and Del Monte "Summer Crisp". I agree that most canned corn has gone downhill. The super sweets/sugar enhanced hybrids make the old varieties taste like field corn.

 

[Steve Frazier]

I didn't think to mention appearance, but you guys have reminded me that the appearance of the canned corn has changed too. What I remember from years ago was a fairly small pale yellow kernel, where what I see today are large uniform deep yellow kernels that more closely resemble field corn than sweet corn.

For some reason I've never been able to grow corn myself, I get nice stalks but the ears never develop well. There are a few local farmers who grow some real nice stuff and believe me I take advantage during the season which unfortunately is only a few weeks. We have corn with dinner 3 or 4 times a week and the past few years have been disappointing. We've tried different brands but they all seem to have switched to a different variety, probably more suitable to processing as has been mentioned.

Progress???

 

[Orchard Ex]

For some reason I've never been able to grow corn myself, I get nice stalks but the ears never develop well.

Make sure that you plant multiple short rows side by side, not one or two long rows by themselves. You want a clump of corn more than a thin string of corn. That way the wind can pollinate the ears from any direction.
Dang, now I want corn for dinner.

 

[Squizzy246B]

For some reason I've never been able to grow corn myself, I get nice stalks but the ears never develop well. ?

I can almost guarantee that is a lack of Zinc. Get yourself a packet of Trace Elements that has plenty of Zinc and try it. Also do a Ph test and try and keep the Ph near neutral or slightly acidic.

 

[KMB83]

steve,

what color was your corn that didnt have ears? with a little diagnosis we can probably figure out what went wrong. i would be shocked if it is a trace element. although if your planting this in old worn out soils (red clays) trace elements can come into play. it is likely a lack of one of these:

nitrogen (yellowing from the bottom up and down the mid rib of the leaves) appears mid-season

potassium (yellow from bottom up and necrosis on the leave margins) appears mid season

phosphorous (purplish tint) appears early

miracle grow,manure or something of that sort should have plenty of the micro nutrients needed.

could be some other thing other than fertility.... make sure your soils arent compacted and that you didnt plant it in too wet/cool of conditions. Ph is a valid concern, although symptoms show up early...

in general for sweet corn a standard field situation would be to plant 30" from row to row and 8-12" spacing down the row.

if pollination is the issue you'll have cobs and no kernals.

these are my thoughts, i'm sure you'll get some more opinions

 

[Deere9670]

KMB summed it up very well steve. Seed spacing is key as well since im guessing you are not using a planter? As far as the varities...they are always switching.....dont let that fool you into thinking the updated is better, because that is not always the case. From your post, it doesent sound like its 100% the varities fault, but like KMB said, look for those signs of poor fertilty from the leaf tissue.The darker the shade of green= better. Also dont plant to early with sweet corn, its just not worth risking it

 

[Steve Frazier]

This was just a side yard garden, it was 25' x 30'. The deer population here is so bad I have to fence the garden and that was about all I could afford to do. The planting was by hand, I don't recall the spacing, nor the coloring of the undeveloped ears. At one point I tried planting in circular mounds that I had read would enhance pollination, but that didn't work out either. I think it's been about 15 years since I've gardened, I just don't have the time any more.

I made the garden into a chicken pen and had chickens roaming in there for about 5 years, I'll bet that soil is nice and fertile now! Predators eventually have gotten all my chickens and I've kicked around the idea of doing the garden again but I'm not sure of the time I'll have.

 

[Skunkworks101]

There are many,many diffrent hybrids of sweet corn.Each is bred for a specific reason,some for starch content,some for a very long window for harvest,and many for sugar content. For many of the top end name brands of canned vegetables,there are very strict requirements before that corn,can be sold and packaged under that label such as Green Giant.Top end sweet corn will have in excess of 20% sugar,and some are upwards of 23%,,seek out top of the line and priced sweet corn in cans to get the sweetness that you remember,it is still out there.

 

[stock]

can't stand the stuff myself reckon it should be left to the diet feeders, Steve they grow it here as cattle feed and because of the lack of sunshine the heads don't form but it is of no consequence as it is ensiloed for winter forage.

 

[redneck rigger]

Has anyone on here ever heard of Topping sweet corn? Reason being, my family invented a machine that would cut tassels off sweet corn fields after polination had taken place, and a few weeks before harvest. The machine was a 10 foot tall hydraucilly driven 8 wheel machine with a wingspan of 65 feet. we were in business for almost 30 years until National Frozen foods, our main customer, decided to build their own machine(should I say Have Oxbo build one for them) wich in turn, put us outta business. That machine was my world for a lot of years. I had to cut it up for scrap recently, and still get sad knowin it's gone. jsut lookin around to see if we were the only ones that practiced this type of operation. I'm tryin to post pictures, but I'm havin a hell of a time.

 

[icestationzebra]

"Has anyone on here ever heard of Topping sweet corn?"

I've heard of topping seed corn, but not sweet corn. When they plant seed corn the mix two varieties in the same field, something like 2 rows of variety X to every 10 rows of variety Y. Then they top the Y plants so they can only be pollinated by the X plants. At harvest time they only take the Y plants for seed and leave the X plants for cow feed.

ISZ

 

[chroniekon]

I ran a corn topper as a kid back in the late 60's. All sweet corn on the farm I worked on. It was done to keep the corn from blowing over. The tractor was a John Deere 1010 raised up on stilts basically. The first version used a sickle bar that cut four rows at a time. It was pretty slow and was replaced with a series of spinning blades driven by hydraulic motors.

 

[North Texan]

I'm not a fan of canned corn myself. I've found some frozen varieties of corn to be better.

 

[Kiteman]

I like the Green Giant frozen bi-color if I don't buy fresh. I'm amazed anymore that I can always buy "fresh" corn at the store 12 months a year. Still doesn't compare to JUl-Aug-Sep when we get local stuff. I prefer bicolor or white.
I think Europe generally thinks corn is just for feed. When I was in Croatia 2 years ago there were a couple street vendors selling hot corn on the cob, but it was bland with no butter or salt! Done that way, I can see why they think that.

 

[HATCHEQUIP]

Has anyone tried microwaved corn on the cobb :take off about 2/3 of the shuck cut top and bottem off and nuke about 3 minutes per ear when you take it out its hot and steamed in it own shuck and the shuck and silk just off and add butter and boy ol boy just add good old cow butter and enjoy