Software
Houzz Logo Print
kr222

Corn-y Question about Varieties

16 years ago

I was wondering if you have ever tried any of these varieties. Next year I would like to take a shot at growing corn. Right now I am trying to decide between the following:

Serendipity

Silver Queen

Northern Xtra Sweet Yellow

Early Xtra Sweet Yellow

Early Illini Extra Sweet Yellow

Sweetie 82 Yellow

The most important aspect would be that they regularly produce at least two ears per stalk. After that pest and disease resistance.

Have you grown any of these? What were your results? Do you have a variety that you prefer? Any information that you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Kim

Here is a link that might be useful: Kim's Garden

Comments (17)

  • 16 years ago

    you are aware that you have 1 bi-color,one white and 4 whites on you list. pest disease resistance is meaning less when come to small plots of corn.
    As for two ears per plant early sunglow is well know for producing to ears.

  • 16 years ago

    Agree that taste and harvest window are much more important to most homegrowers Than disease resistance. Pests, insects and otherwise are not very discriminating among cultivars.
    Serendipity is a main season synergistic bicolor. Very sweet, but does not need isolation like the supersweets.
    Silver Queen is a large white Su ( standard). Excellent corn in the south. Has a very long season (90 days) Many of prefer white corn to yellow and the queen is the standard by which others are compared.
    The Xtra- Sweet yellows are all SH2, the supersweets. Very sweet but with a different taste and texture. You either love or hate them. The ones you listed are the early maturity ones.
    I am not acquainted with Sweetie 82.

  • 16 years ago

    If you have never grown corn I would highly recommend the Queen of all corn, SILVER QUEEN. The standard by which all other sweet corns are judged. Peaches have Elberta and corn has Silver Queen.
    The three yellows are supersweets and while many like the candy like sweetness of them many of us who know what corn is supposed to taste like don't! I grew up on Truckers Favorite and remember my first sweet which was Bantam pencil cob.
    I've never grown a supersweet but I understand they have germination problems in cool soil and must be planted late as compared to standard sweets. Supersweets also have to be kept segregated from all other corns as cross pollination will affect the flavor of the corn. Corn pollen being windborne can cross polinate over a considerable distance, so your neighbor's corn patch can do you in. The only issue I've ever had with Silver Queen is during dry years not getting a good set of kernels but all corn is suseptible to this.

  • 16 years ago

    I think my main concern about Silver Queen is that it is such a late corn compared to the others.

    I really love the fresh sweet corn from the grocery store, but I have no idea what kind of corn it is. Sometimes it's yellow. Sometimes white. I've liked them all.

    Production is my biggest concern. Height isn't an issue. I'll have to look up Early Sunglow. I did see that someone reviewing Serendipity on another site said that their produced 2-3 ears per stalk. I haven't heard of anyone else having those results though.

    Keep the great info coming!

  • 16 years ago

    My personal taste runs to Se type corn. The Supersweets are too sweet for me.
    Bicolors - Sugar Dots, Delectable, Luscious, Peaches and Cream, Ambrosia, Chubby Checkers.
    Whites - Silver King, Silver Princess, Silver Queen, Augusta, Silver Choice, Avalon.
    Yellows - Kandy Korn, Seneca Chief, Sugar Buns, Bodacious
    Red - Ruby Queen.
    The early corns drop off considerably in taste, The best I have tried is white, Silver Knight, bi-color - Quickie, yellow - Sunglo

  • 16 years ago

    The problem with corn recommendations is that everyone is going to have different preferences. I personally love the very sweet Sh2 corns -- the best I've found to date has been Sun and Stars hybrid from Burpee. This past summer, Sugar Pearls proved to be nearly as good for me. Ruby Queen is very good for an Se corn.

    It really all depends on what you like. Many people like the taste of field corns eaten in the fresh kernel stage. Tried it this summer. Tolerable but not something I was crazy about. My reaction was -- well, better than eating paste, but not too different overall -- needs sugar!

  • 16 years ago

    Most if not all supermarket corn is going to be of the supersweet type. Corn once harvested begins to convert sugars into starches. The genetic traits in supersweets delay this to some extent allowing it to hold it's sweet flavor longer than other types making it the preferred type for shipping to market. Please don't ask me to explain better than that as that is my understanding of it.
    With the regular sweets (SE) your best flavor is acheived if you bring the boiling water to the garden with you. The rule is to pick and process all in the same day.

  • 16 years ago

    I'm leaning towards taking a chance on Serendipity. I never met an ear of corn that was too sweet...at least not yet. Isolation won't be a problem (if it's needed). No one else around here grows corn. I've only seen one other home with a garden. Sad but true.

    Have any of you grown Serendipity? What were your results?

  • 16 years ago

    Serendipity is a good one. It is a bit rough cobbed but otherwise excellent flavor.

    DarJones

  • 16 years ago

    I have done some of those, but had my best year growing Incredible, a SE type. Fully double earred and huge ears, too. Kandy Korn is good, but the ears are rather small.

  • 16 years ago

    Try a Google search for silver queen. I ran across some recent articles that were saying silver queen is not even planted very much any more. The farmers plant better varieties and then lable them as silver queen because that is the name the customers want. One article was a taste teste of several varieties and silver queen was not at the top of the list. I think it was done in Alabma if that helps the search.

  • 16 years ago

    You are correct that Silver Queen is falling from favor with the roadside stand marketers. For the very same reasons that you will not find a SE corn at your local supermarket, that plus the fact that others can be brought to market earlier as well. Not for a quality issue, the Queen has still got it in my book. But then again I only grow to feed my family and could care less if my corn can sit on a shelf for a week. What I look for is reliability year in and year out and Silver Queen is all of that and then some. Fully as reliable as the Truckers Favorite I grew up with and sweet to boot.
    BTW this year I'm putting in some Truckers for old time's sake.

  • 16 years ago

    I'll go look up more on Incredible and Silver Queen as well...

  • 16 years ago

    As staed before the, the most imporatant taste buds are your own. When growing for yourself grow that which you like best. In this area, folks who really like sweet corn, prefer whites. I plant many varieties from time to time, I like to experiment, but my standbys are Silver Princess, Silver King, and Silver Queen. Silver Princess is a 75 day version, slightly smaller ears, Silver King (82 day) almost identical to Silver Queen and Silver Queen 90 day. I can plant them at the same time and have extended harvest as they are about 10 days apart. I have tried most of the other whites, but only Augusta comes close. I also tried the extra early Silver Knight (65 day), but like most extra earlys, quality is lacking. White Out and the synergistic Avalon are passable. Argent is not competitive.
    Silver King is popular among Market gardeners, but they like myself usually plant combinations for extended harvest without having to plant every two weeks. While the shelf life of these is much better than the open pollinated corn, it is limited to 12-24 hours. If you prefer to stick your corn in a refrigerator for two weeks before eating, these are not for you. Some of the supersweets have incredible shelf life.
    {{gwi:119426}} {{gwi:119427}} {{gwi:119428}}href="http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm92/farmerdill/winter%202009/?action=view&current=silverqueen.jpg"; target="_blank">{{gwi:119429}}

  • 16 years ago

    I have tried several varieties, but there are dozens I haven't tried!!
    I really like Incredible yellow se+. I really like Ambrosia bi-color se+. I really like Montauk bi-color se+ 75%/sh2 25%. This one is called synergistic.

  • 16 years ago

    One thing you asked about, two ears per plant, is more a matter of plant spacing than variety. But really it's about ears per acre, right? Or in your case how many ears from your plot. There have been recommendations on here to plant at some very high densities, like two plants per square foot. Do that and you'd be lucky if there is one small ear on most plants. I allow at least two sq ft per plant. That will give you one good ear per plant and a second on a few plants. Three sq ft per plant will give maybe 1.5+ ears per plant on many varieties.

    I grew Miari 301 this past summer. Nine plantings gave me corn from June 20 till mid Nov. It is a supper sweet and will keep in the frig for 10 days. Only problem was some rust on later plantings.

    Keys to corn are lots of water and nitrogen. Short there and you will be disappointed.

    The Fruitnut

  • 16 years ago

    I planted Northern Xtra Sweet Yellow, Mirai 421 W and Gurney's Gotta Have It this year.

    Northern Xtra Sweet and Gotta Have It were repeats from last year -- Northern because it produced so well last year (and again this year) and Gotta Have It because I figured I must have done something horribly wrong last year. (I must have done something horribly wrong again this year, too. I won't give it another chance here. I can't afford the garden space to get one ear of corn.)

    Anyway, like I said, Northern produced really well, and I'm leaning toward putting it in again next year for an early crop. It had pretty good cool-soil emergence and didn't seem to be bothered by the practically 30 days of rainy/overcast days in June.

    Mirai is on next year's list again, too. We enjoyed this augmented super-sweet. I often ate an ear of it in the garden when I got home from work. DH is incredibly fussy in odd ways. If supper doesn't come from a truck stop's hot deli, he'd just as soon not eat it. Corn on the cob is the exception. He normally doesn't pay any attention to what I'm doing in the garden, but he went so far as to suggest I only plant "that kind he likes" next year. I'm afraid to put all my eggs in that basket, though, as Mirai varieties are quite sensitive about soil planting temperature.

    Of the rest of your list, I've only grown Silver Queen. I planted it the very first time I had my own garden, which I think was 1995. Its DTM is actually a little long for this area, but everything must have been perfect that year (lots of hot, hot weather and no hail storms for a change). That corn was the most wonderful stuff I'd had since I was a kid in my mother's garden. I tried it a couple times after that but couldn't get another perfect season.

    HTH and good luck!

Sponsored
Whisler Home Improvement
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars9 Reviews
Franklin County's Committed Home Improvement Professionals