Silver queen sweet corn vs Johnson grass.

ScottOkieman

10 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

Ok-Hicks,

Most years I don't grow corn, so I might not be the best one to answer your question. But, I did a quick search and found some info. from the University Missouri Extension. The website link is below.

Here is a link that might be useful: University Missouri Extension - Johnsongrass Control

scottokla

10 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

I did not know that Johnsongrass was not native until just now. It was everywhere at the place I grew up. It's a pain in the rear for me now.

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So many choices on sweet corn! I will stick to my tried and true 'Jubilee'. I was surprised the seed company had a warning in their catalog: "Warning: this is regular old fashioned sweet corn. Perhaps try sparingly at first to see you like the taste of regular sweet corn as this is not a sugar enhanced hybrid." It makes me feel awfully old as most of my life I ate regular sweet corn until all these SH2, SU stuff came along. Not complaining but I like the taste of regular sweet corn too and hope it does not disappear like seeded watermelons have done in my area. I like Jubilee. Put the pot on to boil, then pick the corn. Or better yet, roast on the grill. And yes I am one of those weirdos who likes his corn a bit on the mature side with larger kernels and ok if a bit starchy. I prefer corn that is not so tender when I pick it. My family prefers it more tender so I have to leave a few cobs on the stalk longer just for my personal eating.

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I put the Sugar Dots corn in one 4 x 12 area and the Silver Queen in the other 4 x 12 area. The Silver Queen is in a composted bed that was made last year and grew exceptional green beans, peppers, broccoli, and cauliflower. The area the Sugar Dots was grown in was a brand new bed that was made this year and was filled with new compost from the local compost facility (which is where the compost came for the Silver Queen gardening area as well). All Silver Queen corn grew very well in its bed. There indeed were stalks that had zero corn ear on them - and they were sporadically located around the bed. All the corn was planted at the same time and grew together. Speaking of pollen issues - I had just the opposite. It seemed that pollen began falling at least a full week before the silks emerged on the corn. That happened last year with Peaches & Cream corn and it was so bad that I barely got any full ears of corn out of that group. Those were planted much closer together - about a one per square foot. I'm just concerned about wasting another 30% of the gardening space next year that I could use to grow something else if I have the same bad luck. Next year I am going to only plant Silver Queen - as I believe the Sugar Dots corn may have been bad to begin with. Last year when I used the Sugar Dots corn, it was also weak-looking and stunted - which was grown in the same area that the Silver Queen corn was grown in this year. As the leaves begin to fall in our area soon, I will rake them up and mulch them in the vaccuum/blower that I have - then spread them across all of the areas and till them in. Hopefully this will provide some good additional organic matter and nutrients.

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Went back and looked at the photos I took of the first year I put a garden in by the house. I agree myself with some of the doubts of the 12 ft. high stalks! Hehehe! Most of the stalk heights were around 10 ft. or so with some being less. Was late when I put this topic up and seemed to me that the stalk heights were much higher than what they really were. Time has a way of playing tricks on the mind I think! LOL! Sorry for that. :) Someone mentioned urea in the soil. The previous owner before I moved in, had a dog kennel with wood chips as bedding, where the garden now resides. I think that may have had a good effect on the first year or two garden results. The plants then, looked better than they do now. Each year I usually add dead leaves and other yard waste to the soil in the Fall. A few years ago, I did add a few hundred pounds of processed cow manure into the soil which seemed to help that years crop. I do remember the beans that were growing in the same patch of soil as the corn was, really had a nice rich green color to the leaves. The nitrogen fertilizer I use is 38-0-0. I also try to keep the plants watered about every 5 or 6 days. I usually just dig a small hole in the ground near the plants and see how dry the soil is to let me know if the soil is really dried out or still moist under the surface. The ear sizes the first year or two were nice looking and long. Seems like each year the majority of the ears that I get are getting shorter. Sounds like to me that it may be related to a soil nutrient deficiency. I have been toying with the idea of using a good amount of compost and seeing what kind of results I can get. I am definitely sold on the soil test idea. Would be interesting to see what it looks like now. I had one done around 4 years ago. Thanks folks for the help and suggestions. It is really appreciated. :)

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Ok-Hicks, I can tell you what not to do with Johnson grass. When I was new to Ok the first spring, I saw a clump of grass no more than a foot tall. It had just rained so I thought I could pull it up. As I was steadily pulling on it, I felt something give way in the middle of my back. When the increasing pain forced me to visit a chiropractor for the first time in my life, he told me I'd pulled the rib head away from the backbone. I didn't know the stuff was perrenial with roots that went five feet into the ground. Unless you bought Roundup Ready corn you don't dare spray...hope you wouldn't anyway so close to corn. But for this year I would find those corn rows and mow the Johnsongrass between them. That's your only chance to get a crop this year. If you study the plants carefully you will learn to tell the difference between corn and Johnson grass plants. Mow it, weedeat it, cut it, lay weedmatting on it--just for the season. And then get a goat; they will eventually kill it through close grazing, but you have to be careful, because in hot dry weather it can kill them. It develops cyanide.

Okiedawn OK Zone 7

10 years ago

last modified: 9 years ago

I believe I remember reading about Dorothy's Johnson grass experiences (at least some of them) in her book. : )

I pull out or dig out all I can. The hand-pulling is really easy with any Johnson grass that has just recently sprouted from seed. With plants sprouting from rhizomes, I have to dig. Then, I crawl on my hands and knees along the rows of corn with my Fiskars garden scissors in my hands about once a week and cut off the Johnson grass as close to the ground as I can. The more you keep the topgrowth clipped back short, the more you weaken it since there aren't any (or many) leaves above ground conducting photosynthesis and sending energy to the plant roots.

Johnson grass is and always has been my number one garden problem. I dig out all I can every year, and I rototill the remainder on purpose to break up the rhizomes into a million pieces in winter. If you leave them exposed on the surface of the ground, they can dehydrate and then freeze if the weather is cold enough. I will repeatedly rototill and rake out all the pieces of rhizomes I can find in winter. We are in our 15th year here and I still have Johnson grass issues in the big garden, but probably only about 10% of what I once had.

Last Sunday I pulled out seedling Johnson grass from my rows of Silver Queen, Country Gentleman and Early Sunglow Corn. Then I dug out the plants that had come back from rhizomes. This is only our second year to grow corn in this area, and there's not much Johnson Grass at all now compared to last year. However, this is a sandy soil area and I can dig pretty deep and get out a lot of the rhizomes. In our big garden where the soil is mostly clay, it is more of a battle.

If you rototilled your soil before planting the corn, you might have Johnson grass seedlings that sprouted from seed in the soil. It would take a while, but you could dig themout. If you rototilled or plowed and broke up existing Johnson Grass rhizomes into billions of smaller pieces, and then you didn't rake them out, then there isn't much you can do except cut them off to keep them short so they will weaken.

It is easier to tell the corn from the Johnson grass once they are 6-8" tall.

Before we moved here, I thought bermuda grass was the worst stuff on earth after battling to keep it out of garden beds in Fort Worth. After moving here, I quickly learned that bermuda grass is a lazy wimp compared to Johnson grass. Johnson grass is bermuda grass on steroids.

Eventually the corn gets tall enough and casts enough shade that it will outcompete the Johnson grass but you can help ensure that by cutting back the Johnson grass. If you spaced your corn plants really widely apart, you can use a string trimmer to cut only the Johnson grass.

You could use a cheap foam paintbrush to brush a grasskiller type herbicide onto the Johnson grass, but don't get it on the corn!

Be careful and read the label carefully if you use any of the herbicides mentioned in the link that Scott has in his response. Some herbicides that work on Johnson grass in corn fields only work on popcorn or field corn and will damage or kill Johnson grass. If you had planted Roundup Ready corn (available only to commercial growers as far as I know), you could have sprayed the whole field with Round-up and the corn would have been fine. However, I am not recommending that...just saying that is how commercial growers often do it. Unfortunately, the heavy use of RR corn varieties now has given us Johnson grass in some nations and in some states (including Arkansas) that now is tolerant of glyphosate type herbicides.

If you didn't have a crop in the field, regular mowing will get rid of the Johnson grass (same mechanism as allowing goats to graze it---having the top growth removed repeatedly weakens it) but the issue is that you do have a crop in the field.

Johnson grass is probably the #1 reason gardeners in my county give up gardening. You see it every year. They decide to have a garden. They plow up the ground or rototill it and immediately plant. They ignore those little grass plants that start sprouting. By June, those little sprouts of Johnson Grass are taller than the rest of the garden, including being taller than the corn and taller than the tomato plants. The gardeners try to pull out the grass and discovers it has rhizomes that run for feet and that are as big around as their index finger. They abandon the garden before the Fourth of July and let the Johnson grass win. They do this for multiple years before deciding that gardening isn't fun. Don't let this happen to you. When a gardener abandons a garden full of Johnson grass, it grows until it sets seed, and then you have to deal with a ton more Johnson Grass next year.

With consistent effort, you can get rid of it. Don't let it defeat you.

On the other hand, if you are in a rural or semi-rural area where there likely is a raccoon population, and if your garden isn't fenced, just relax. Johnson grass won't be a problem, but the coons will be. They will harvest the corn for you about 3-5 days before it is ready for you to harvest it, and they'll tear up all the cornstalks for you, leaving only the Johnson grass, growing happily and quite healthy. At that point, having lost the corn crop to the coons, you can spray the Johnson grass with a herbicide if you wish, and then plant corn in mid-summer for a fall harvest.

Dawn

Silver queen sweet corn vs Johnson grass.

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ScottOkieman

scottokla

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