I planted my Peaches & Cream a day after you did, I have ~85 plants. At first my growth rates were all over the place. Now they are starting to even out. Most are doing really well and the top 80% are pretty much the same size, within a couple inches of each other. Then I have a few runts that are almost half the size of the rest. And a couple are so bad that their suckers are bigger than the main stalk now!

From your pic it looks like you might have more variation than I do. Ill try to post a pic to compare.

What I do is plant the corn 3 or 4 times thicker than the final stand. Then I can choose the healthier ones and cut the runts out.

I also plant several times as much corn as I want to end up with, so I have some left after the rabbits. I thin when the plants are finally too big for t hem.

Corn seed is cheap compared to all the effort in making a crop here. So I'm clearly in the over plant and thin crowd.

What happened was I started to plant 3 seeds per spot, but after I did 2 I looked at the other 46 more spots left to plant and got worried about running out of seeds before I was done. I was going to be planting close to 150 seeds if I did 3 per spot. The seed packets looked at first glance to be holding about 150, so i thought there was a chance I'd run out.

Also, I wanted to plant them all at once and I wouldn't be able to stop by the garden center for a few more days. I didn't want corn days late. So I planted only 1 at a time after that. When I was done and saw I had so many seeds left, I did the 6 replants with 3 each.

It turns out that 3 of the replants did indeed have 1 plant noticeably taller than the other 2. However the other 3 replants produced plants of the same size.

This weekend is going to be time for the second feeding, I'm using blood meal and 10-10-10. I'm hoping sizes will stabilize over time, helped by regular feeding. I'm just worried that with the corn rated for 6' tall, I don't wind up with mature 6' tall corn mixed with mature 3' tall corn. I want a uniform corn field.

I suggest that corn not be planted 3 grains together but rather drilled...spaced single file evenly apart.

I planted my corn 1 kernel per spot; 12" spacing in rows 24" apart. Also I planted 10 or 12 extra in a small group on the side to fill in any places that didnt germinate. Turns out I had 100% germination so I didnt need them. I think planting extra on the side would be easier than thinning out an entire plot of corn.

Corn does not transplant well. Transplanting will delay the plant and make it smaller than those not transplanted. Thinning my corn plot takes a few minutes. It is the best way to get a uniform stand of uniform plants.

I agree with fruitnut. It's not only getting a stand, but getting a vibrant and healthy stand. Some grains in most sweet corn varieties are more vigorous and thus make the better keepers.

OK, here are some pics of my corn.

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Taken yesterday these are 1 month old.

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A couple of healthy ones. They are ~18" tall.

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Here is one where the sucker took over. Pretty sure the stalk on the right is the sucker.

Im keeping the suckers pulled off of half the plot and letting them do as they may on the other half. My neighbor insists that you have to sucker them or the whole plant will suffer. We'll see :)

@fruitnut:

That makes alot of sense, never thought about stunting them after transplanting. And I would be a little more impressed with my plot of corn if they were all as good as the best :) Next year I will try it. BTW, do you plant 6" apart then thin out from there? Or 2 or 3 in a close group every 12"? Also how big do you let them get before thinning them?

Thanks,

Jeremy

Jeremy:

Your corn looks as good as it gets. Picture perfect in fact!! If you can do that every year just keep doing what you are doing now.

I seed about 2-3 times the seed as I want plants. Most of the time it's not needed, just insurance. Sometimes cutworms or something else kills or slows some plants. I don't worry about spacing the seed exactly. The plant spacing doesn't need to be exact and a little difference in size is OK. But I'd rather have uniform size than exact spacing.

Wow, I'm jealous, that's exactly how I wanted my corn to look.

I'm not doing anything about the suckers. At this point I want to mess with the plants as little as possible, tinkering too much might be something I regret if I don't get any ears out of it later.

I planted mine 10" apart, each row 18" apart, for comparison.

Thanks guys. I have my fingers crossed that they keep growing like that and produce well.

The plot where they are at used to be cow pasture for many many years, this is the first time growing anything in it. The only thing I did was till in some pelletized lime because it was quite acidic (used a simple baking soda test). I just cultivated to one side of each row and added some blood meal. Next month Ill do the same on the other side of each row. Also I water almost every morning, we've had mid 90's temps and 0 rain for almost 3 weeks.