My sweet corn has fallen over in a bad storm last night. Will it come back what should I do!!!? It is flat on the ground!!!

-- William Robinson (ryanr@goeaston.com), July 27, 2001

Answers

Don't worry William. I have raised sweet corn a couple of times and would worry like mad about it. I woke up one morning to find mine laying over after a big storm, too. Guess what? By that evening it was back on it "feet"! Best corn I ever ate!

-- Robin (robinatt@salpublib.org), July 27, 2001.

Sorry but I have the opposite news. Mine went down Tuesday night also in a storm and I hoped it would stand back up Wednesday as it had done once before when it was shorter. It was just at 8' tall. I went out to try to straighten it by hand yesterday afternoon and ended up breaking more than I helped. I'm not going to tear it out just yet and hope but I'm not holding my breath.

Mine is Improved Golden Bantam (yeah, the 8' surprised me too) and I think it's a matter of size. The shorter the corn, the easier it is to right itself. Birds pulled up my first planting and now this. RATS!

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), July 27, 2001.

William--My sweet corn went down in a storm on Wednesday. Haven't had rain for at least a month, prayed it would rain, and look what happened! Oh well, I'm not surprised. This happens almost every year. And it really went down bad this year. Flat as a pancake. From all this corn blowing down experience, I KNOW it ain't a gonna come back up without assistance. We use metal fence poles and twine or whatever we have and string it back up. Not a pretty sight, but I'll ripen most of it. The variety was Kandy Korn, which is supposed to be lodge resistant, but hey, not in my garden. It was 9' tall at least, each plant had 3-4 tillers at the bottom, some with ears of their own, with 2 ears on the main stalk. I hilled real good twice and used rock phosphate for strong root development, so what else can you do? Next year I am trying the variety, Legend, which is supposed to be shorter and more lodge resistant.

-- vicki in NW OH (thga76@aol.com), July 27, 2001.

I had this happen to my corn several years ago. It looked like those crop circles in the UK. I propped it up with string between posts and was able to get most of it to stand. A month later the ears were ready for picking and the raccoons thought they were wonderful. I never got an ear. Guess what? I'm not growing corn this year.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), July 27, 2001.

well every year its somthing USUALY it will straghten up had a crop circle 150' acrost in my field corn this year well it straghtened up usualy sugar corn will too iv had coon problems and sometimes it doesent matter what you do but keep trying flashing lights ,radios spraying hot sauce tying the dog in the field well i got my sugar corn this year .. knock on wood i willll get moreas the season continuesnow if i just find enough tomatoes in the weeds this year

-- george darby (windwillow@fuse.net), July 28, 2001.