"I've read claims by folks that they successfully have grown sweet corn in very tight spacing."

The definition of "successfully" is key here. Obtaining 1 ear per stalk is good enough for some people, my threshold of success has to be at least 1.5 ears per stalk which seems to be about average for most sweet corn varieties when planted under recommended growing conditions (Ambrosia, se, is my choice).

After years of trying different planting configurations and fert applications my preferred method is using wide rows with the corn seed zigzagged down each row spaced 12" apart, row centers spaced about 30-36" apart. Fert used is a 50/50 mix of gardentone & urea, 3 applications, #1 - prior to planting, #2 - when stalks are 12" tall, #3- when tassels start to peak out of the center whorls. This results in my target of 1.5 ears per plant.

I may get 2 ears per plant if spacing of the plants and/or rows were greater but the number of ears per sqft would probably be the same.

drscottr guess you have not actually read the square foot gardening garden books;and articles written by Mel Barthomew; instead a few web pages and message board posts. Because if you had read the books and articles on the subject you would not be asking these rudimentary questions.

1. Vermiculite and peat moss are not essential to square growing but good compost is.

2 corn is very inefficient no matter how it is grown both in space and nutrients

3. corn spacing in square foot gardening different depending on the type corn being grown early( 4 plants per square foot), mid-season((2 plants per square )and late varieties(1 plant per . .

square).

4. 2 ear producing varieties vs 1 ear producing variety.

5. square foot gardening designed so you can start small add the more expensive elements can added over time.

I post will post square gardening book page numbers and article bibliography later so you can read the info directly.

I agree that one should not trust everything he/she read whether online or not. But this experiment you asked, you need to understand the fact that, every patch of soil could be different in your kitchen garden, hell even every square foot of soil will be different, you want people from different places to do this together, the result will be wildly inconclusive to say the least.

Sorry for my english but what I was trying to say is, you really underestimated how different everyone's soil and your own soil is.

Hi Bunny

Of course they are different but so are human beings when we do drug trials. The concept is the same - test a large enough sample and pool the results. Those results will be generally accurate for most folks. The results wouldn't be inconclusive but instead give the possible range of results as well as the average result.

If such tests were always inconclusive, then no scientific experiments would have legitimacy. The larger the sample size the greater the accuracy. One could even look at results by type of soil, rain fall, latitude, etc if the sample was large enough.

OK now I am starting to get what you meant by all that. It was a great idea, even when everyone's soil is different, as long as they are doing the same thing as what you suggested, the statistical conclusions from them will still be very valuable.

There may be a few that would be willing to plant a variety that was named by someone else ...not me. There may be people willing to plant at a certain date...I already have a schedule.

Perhaps the best test would be to do the test in one patch of ground where the soil and weather would be the same for all.

What is the compost only group controlling for? I'm interested in the results, although I dont have the space to participate. Is there a specific variety you've seen someone claim grows better with close spacing?

Wayne and Skip

Sorry you can't participate. The more the better.

The way a true study works, you have to control some variables. In this case we would control for the variety, density, etc. The more different plots the more the results would mean. A single site would only tell you how that plot produces. Multiple different plots would give you general conclusions.