Only certain varieties of sweet corn will have their flavor affected by a nearby field corn planting. These are the ones labeled "super-sweet," "sugar-enhanced," etc. That's why some of the advice above is incorrect -- though it would be true for "ordinary" vegetables (and non-enhanced varieties of sweet corn, for that matter). You could try timing your planting to avoid cross-pollination, but I wouldn't rely on starting indoors; direct-sown corn catches up quickly to transplanted. Or simply plant a variety of sweet corn that doesn't become starchy if cross-pollinated. Some people prefer these; their disadvantage is that the corn must be eaten very quickly after harvest, while the enhanced varieties can keep their sugar for days. Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet corn

I can't think of any stress on the plants and the silk is developing fine. The only thing that seems to be wrong with the plants is the tassel. The ears already have plenty of silk coming out, but they aren't getting pollinated. I did have aphids start to show up maybe 3-4 weeks ago and I sprayed with a bug killer as soon as I started to notice them. It seemed to kill the aphids and I haven't seen any signs of them since. I've had aphids show up previous years, but a lot later in development after the ears had already been pollinated. I don't know if this would stress the plant at all or if any thing else would affect it.

The exceptionally hot weather is making corn prematurely tassel all over the midwest. Drought stress can exacerbate it. It has been my experience that corn which achieves at least half of its "normal" height can still make good ears as long as other conditions are good, moisture being the most critical. I believe that extreme heat during the tassel phase can cause "blind" stalks that form no ears, I know that extreme drought or overcrowding can do this. My corn is all doing it this year. Most of it looks like it will finish out at 5 to 6 feet,and it is beginning to show ears. So I will water and pray for the best. It will be what it will be, nothing can be done now about it.

John, LOL. I am the conservative one. At least I wait until just after the last frost date. My best gardening friend who lives just a short distance from me often plants his corn a week before the last frost date, or sometimes in a warm spring, two weeks before. The soil temperature is what determines if and how quickly the corn seed will sprout. With standard sweet corn (NOT the pickier supersweets) I plant after the soil temperature at planting depth is at or above 50 degrees for at least 3 consecutive days. With the extra-sweet varieties, I wait for 60-70 degree soil. Our late-winter and spring weather is very erratic here with wild temperature swings all over the place. We occasionally have a very warm winter or early spring day in the 80s or 90s even while we're still having freezing nights. If the soil temperature is in the right range, and there's not a big cold front out there in the 7-10 day forecast models, I can plant easily in March for old-fashioned regular sweet corn, and in April for the newer supersweet hybrids. I've lost sweet corn to a late freeze only twice since moving here in 1999, and that was before I started using Agribon floating row cover to keep plants warm on an occasional cold night, so I feel like the risk of losing it is relatively small. In both of those years the corn froze, we had an abnormally late freeze/frost in the first week of May in an area where our average last frost date is near the end of March. Planting early is a risk I'll gladly take because often we get so hot so early that I'll have pollination issues with corn planted "late'. The last two summers we've had that kind of heat arrive in May instead of in July, so planting early to beat the heat has become more important to me than ever before. How much water your sweet corn needs varies a huge amount depending on your soil and how well it holds moisture. Most of my soil is heavy clay (though well-amended with compost in the garden beds) so it holds water a long time. This past summer I grew some in a sandier area and had a really hard time getting it enough water. Of course, we were in the midst of horrendous drought so in that sense, it wasn't a fair test of how well corn would grow in that area in a more normal year. In the drought, the corn planted the earliest performed the best and the corn planted later produced very few ears. There are times when good moisture is extremely important. The most important time is when the plants are young and small. During the first three weeks or so after the corn plants emerge, it is important that they have good soil moisture to enable them to establish good, strong root systems. The other critical period is the time between the appearance of the tassels and the time you harvest. Once the corn is tasseling, it is critical that it receive adequate moisture so that the ears will be well-filled with nice, filled-out kernels. If the plants are too dry at and after tasseling you can have poorly filled, small ears. In between those two periods, corn is pretty tough and can handle less moisture. t lot of this discussion of moisture is relative to what is normal for your area. I live in an area where our average rainfall is about 38-39" a year, with much of that falling in late winter through late spring, and not much of it falling in summer. However, we've had years with less than 18" of rain and years with about 54" of rain. That's another reason early planting is helpful here---it lets you take advantage of this area's rainfall pattern. The last two years we've had about 27" of rain per year, so I've had to water more than usual. If you are in an area that averages 15" ir 20" of rain a year, you'd have to water a lot more in an average year than I do, although if you had good sandy soil that lets great root systems develop, you might not have to water as much as I do if you sand is a sandy loam that holds moisture well. With corn, just try to keep it pretty moist during those two critical periods, and then try to keep it more or less moist, but not sopping wet, the rest of the time. I have a lot more trouble with my corn in a wet year like 2004 or 2007 than in an average year. There is no set formula for watering anything. There are too many variables, including how well your soil does or does not hold moisture, how dry or humid your air is, how windy the weather is, etc. You just have to watch the plants and water when they look too dry. Remember, too, that is is always best to water so that the soil is moist 6-8" down. One mistake new gardeners often make is they water briefly---only enough to wet the soil an inch or two beneath the surface--and they water very often. When a person waters shallowly and often, it encourages the plants to form shallow root systems near the soil surface, and these shallow root systems do demand almost daily watering. Plants that have good deep soil moisture send their roots down deeply to reach that moisture and, consequently, they are happy with less frequent irrigation or rainfall. It is much better to water deeply less often so you'll have deeper, healthier root systems on your plants. In a dry year, I try to water my corn once a week to a depth of 6-8" and I use drip irrigation to do so, which keeps the moisture off the foliage. In a wet or even average year, I hardly water the corn at all. Dawn