Problems growing corn (stunting)

My family has grown corn all my life. The corn was planted on top of last year's open compost pit, which was filled in the fall and layered with ridiculous amounts of nitrogen fertilizer. It was watered overhead several times a week. We used our own saved seeds for about the last fifteen years. We always had a lot of corn.

Several years after shifting to drip lines the corn began appearing stunted. This was about 7-8 years ago. The plants initially look perfectly healthy, but tassel at about 3-4 feet and never produce anything. Female blossoms appear normal but never fertilize. We live in an area with extreme summertime temperatures and I'm really considering whether corn is even something we should be growing, but family members want it so it stays for the moment

I decided this past year that it might be seed failure so we bought new seeds, with the same result. Planted in a different area (not over the compost pit and not fertilized at all, in an area where we've never grown corn before) same result. Volunteer patch, same result.

Any ideas on what I might be working with? I understand that extreme temperatures might cause problems, but the tasseling started in mid June, long before the real heat hit. The plants start tasseling immediately after they hit about 3 feet. Water might be an issue, but the plants with flood watering have the same problem. Nematodes are unlikely to travel to the new patch.

And yes, I have researched online before I came here.

I successfully grow corn by accident.   Your current results are my typical.

That made me laugh. I'm thinking that next year I'll plant in the fall and see what comes up, since the healthiest plants this year were volunteers. : )

John F Dean wrote:I successfully grow corn by accident.   Your current results are my typical.

What are your conditions? Maybe the conditions are similar?

Lauren,  I'm hoping Joseph Lofthouse responds to your post as he too is growing corn in Utah, albeit at a possibly higher altitude and northerly latitude.  Depending on how adapted your corn is to your location, it may be worth getting some seed from him and seeing if there is a variety/selection that he has made that might be better for your situation..?  Don't know....just a thought.  This is the first year I did not put in 'Golden Bantam' (open pollinated) sweet corn (northern Minnesota, Red River Valley), rather stunted by its nature.  The black popcorn variety I have in is unusually stunted and taking a long time to  flower (tassels n silks).  That said, the commercial corn field not far from our property perimeter is nothing short of amazing......10 foot tall dark green plants in a drought year (no irrigation) and setting ears normally.  In a few weeks, we will be able to see how those ears filled depending on how the drought persists.

Hoping you find some answers soon....  Good luck!

Ignoring the size of the plants, that looks like you got 0 pollination.

Do you think the change to drip line irrigation was significant? Have you reverted to the previous method of irrigation at all?  I can't think why it should make any difference, unless something could leach into the water and affect the plant somehow.

Nancy Reading wrote:Do you think the change to drip line irrigation was significant? Have you reverted to the previous method of irrigation at all?  I can't think why it should make any difference, unless something could leach into the water and affect the plant somehow.

I don't think so, but it's possible. Based on its structure corn might be genetically inclined to overhead watering. I don't want to go back to overhead, but it's a possibility.

John Weiland wrote:Lauren,  I'm hoping Joseph Lofthouse responds to your post as he too is growing corn in Utah, albeit at a possibly higher altitude and northerly latitude.  Depending on how adapted your corn is to your location, it may be worth getting some seed from him and seeing if there is a variety/selection that he has made that might be better for your situation..?

I have some of Joseph's corn. I'm under a handicap there, as my father has a form of dementia and anything different bothers him all out of proportion to the change.

I'm holding on to Joseph's seeds for the future.

Corn maturity is very dependent on growing degree days. The plants will flower after accumulating the necessary heat, regardless of how tall they are. Compressing the heat into a shorter time leads to smaller plants at flowering time. Planting about the time apple trees are flowering gives taller plants for me, than planting in the heat of the summer. Do apple trees even grow in that climate?

To me, drip irrigation seems equivalent to planting in a pot. The water makes little pockets of moisture, therefore, the roots don't expand into the dry areas, thus depriving the plants on nutrients.

Corn is best pollinated if grown in blocks. Rain can wash pollen away, or wind can blow it away. Perhaps pollen is damaged by heat, but I wouldn't know about that.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Corn maturity is very dependent on growing degree days. The plants will flower after accumulating the necessary heat, regardless of how tall they are. Compressing the heat into a shorter time leads to smaller plants at flowering time. Planting about the time apple trees are flowering gives taller plants for me, than planting in the heat of the summer. Do apple trees even grow in that climate?

That makes sense. So by that standard, as the UV increased over time (it's consistently into the 11-12 range during the summer now) the plants got shorter. And that fits the pattern.

Yes, apple trees grow quite well here.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:To me, drip irrigation seems equivalent to planting in a pot. The water makes little pockets of moisture, therefore, the roots don't expand into the dry areas, thus depriving the plants on nutrients.  

I'll try the overhead again and see if that makes a difference. I don't like it--we've got our water use down to 1/4 of what we were using five years ago--but if it helps then we have the problem identified and can target it future years.

Hi there. O.K. The first thing I ask is that you please forgive me for commenting on this post. It is obvious that all of you have much more experience at growing corn than I do and please feel free to completely ignore my comment; I won't take it personally. It's just that I looked at your pictures and I've seen/grown that corn in the past so I decided to add my 2 cents.

I've been growing in Sedona, Arizona for going on 11 years now. It is super hot! It's often between 100* and 105* most of the summer here, And we've been in a super horrendous drought/heat condition for more than 2 years now. In fact, these last 3 years I get many days that are 113*. A month ago it was over 110* in my yard for 5 days. Just saying. So I didn't think I would be able to grow corn here at all. Just too freaking hot! From all the info I could find on the internet, corn needs a lot of water and a lot of fertilizer, constantly and consistently, so I didn't have high hopes.

But I tried anyway. I have a few dozen beds of all sizes but I've only tried growing corn 3 times in 11 years because I didn't want to devote one of my  big beds to just one crop. But I tried Golden Bantam Improved and Country Gentleman and I got the exact same results you showed in the pictures. Pretty, green, short plants but zero corn.

Then 3 years ago, before the temperatures became apocalyptic,  I tried 'Anasazi heirloom corn' which was supposed to be able to handle extreme heat!!!  And the difference was like night and day. Believe me, I watered and fertilized them a lot! The corn grew tall and looked pretty, about 7 feet tall. But then the tassels came out and the wind blew and it was astonishing! I could SEE the pollen falling everywhere, like smoke from a fire! I realized the previous corn had no pollen, it all dried up in the heat! The plants were totally covered in bees, thousands of them!! I had to duck down low when I watered them to avoid all the bees! It was awesome. It was a grand experiment!

Anyway, I hope that you let us know how things are turning out for you. I will be very interested to see how you are faring. I will watch this post next year for your results.

Debbie Ann wrote:......I tried 'Anasazi heirloom corn' which was supposed to be able to handle extreme heat!!!  And the difference was like night and day.

Thanks for this positive and encouraging post.....a real testament to the power of breeding.  One of the things that amazes me is the 'flexible adaptation' of certain crops like maize.  What I mean by that is the fact that corn was not widely grown in the far northern Plains of the US for many decades, at least as a major crop.  Then a combination of breeding and husbandry brought in hybrids that had enormous output even under non-irrigated conditions given the typical summer rains.  This year it's a clear drought....and yet on minimal rain, those maize varieties planted locally *still* are showing amazing growth and yield, certainly not as good as better years, but incredible for the drought conditions under which they are being grown. So the adaptation of the maize now grown in the region is additionally 'flexible'.....able to handle the extreme dry as well.  I'm hoping that the OP will be able to hit the sweet spot on a different variety and/or growing conditions that will solve the problem for most of the years to come.

John Weiland wrote:I'm hoping that the OP will be able to hit the sweet spot on a different variety and/or growing conditions that will solve the problem for most of the years to come.

Knowing the problem is half the solution. Another variety (or many of them!) + breeding my own.

Reviving this thread because--- I have corn that is 5-6 feet tall and starting to bloom up on top, but not a blessed ear in the whole bunch. For a moment I thought, did I plant sorghum here instead? The plants are very tall, very green, skinny like sorghum. Then again, I planted the darn corn, and I remember it (Dorinny sweet, probably from Baker Creek. I've grown it before).
This is my second wave of corn this summer, the first did okay but got attacked by bugs (as usual, I often get only a single meal out of the first one). But this year the weather has been BIZARRE-- we had some nice heat up til Christmas and now it's winter cold again. Been raining regularly (in fact, probably we've had a total of 36 hours of sun since Christmas). The heat is supposed to come back this weekend, I hope to maybe see some blossoms?
Anyhow, very thankful to see that I'm not the only person with corn challenges.... (and this is why they don't grow sweet corn in this country, I suspect)

I'd like to Segway an idea about heat tolerance. The first time at my location growing corn, every time is was about 85 degrees it wilted massively. By this last year, my corn never wilted, not once. I burnt everything, burned more, buried all ash in pits. Made fired soil troughs, had fighting chickens. What I'm getting at is there is a lot of work you can do on land to lower pressure.

Adam Hackenberg wrote:....last year, my corn never wilted, not once.......ash....

I'm a big fan of ashes! Lately making up a mix of ash, bone meal, and coffee grounds, and the plants love it.

Careful with ash in any area with alkaline soil. If I put ash in my soil it would push the alkalinity up and nothing would grow. I do use ash in my natural hydroponics project, but I mix it with vinegar to cancel out the base.

Here is a good source for all of you gardeners to make biologically activated compost.
http://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/bioreactor/bioreactor-instructions.shtml

This is a "How to Build Your Own Bioreactor" article that does just that - gives instructions on how to build one.
It talks about the benefits of the bio-activated compost, but, the problem with this method is that it takes one year to finish up the compost! The idea behind this is to have bio-activated compost for the whole garden. Even in this article though they talk about applying extract from this process to spray on gardens, plants, and coating seeds.

Both of these processes - above and below are experimental. The one above has been used successfully though.

I cannot find the other article where these processes were done in pint jars, so this is just from memory!
For small DIY operations there might be a solution around this.  That article suggested filling the jars with cow manure up to about 3/4 full and then finding soil from around large trees that you can dig up or where you had great success with plants in your garden and completing the fill up of the jars. Punch a few holes in the lids for oxygen, add a bit of water to moisten only, then close the jars for 6 to 8 weeks. After that the jars should produce bio-activated compost.

For your seed corn - place one jar batch in a finely woven cloth or several layers of cheese cloth to soak in a small container of water. Squeeze  and then filter the solution again. You now have a bio-activated solution to cover your seed corn. Once coated place the kernels on a paper where they will be allowed to completely dry with disturbing them. Plant and see if that makes a difference in the growth of your plants and the ears.

an update 3 weeks later: we're eating sweet corn. The corn is now 8+ feet tall (spindly, but tall), ears are small, but it's sweet and good.
We had some unseasonably chilly weather, followed by a week of 100+. That was all it took. The heat dropped to our normal summer temps (85ish max) and today it's cool again. That's okay, I got my corn, after the drama.