Last week my late corn took a beating very similar in your pics and I figured that it's either early morning squirrels or late nite raccoons. I surrounded my plot with nylon netting but the varments were still getting into the corn chewing thru the nets and eating the pre-ripened ears like peeling bananas. I was wrong on both varment counts. I placed a large hav-a-hart trap in the middle of the corn plot (with ear inside) and the next morning I had a skunk in the trap with an ear eaten to the bone. I knew that skunks were stealing my grapes but apparently they love Ambrosia sweet corn too.

Trucker's Favorite is an early (90 day) field corn. It was widely used for roasting ears prior to WW II. It is available in both white and yellow versions. The white is competitive in taste to Stowell's Evergreen or Country gentleman. Most folks to day prefer sweeter corn for eating, but if field corn fits your taste buds, Trucker's Favorite is a good all purpose corn.

I grow only yellow corn now and find the bicolor types just too watery, even though mnay like them juicy. I prefer my corn to be a litle more mature too. I bought Legend seeds from, Park Seeds. Also more corn choices: http://www.parkseed.com/gardening/store/AdvancedSearch?storeId=10101&SearchText=commonname%2FCorn&CustSearchText=null&pageNumber=1&alphaPage=null&searchSorter=AlphaSorter&searchFilter=Avail&previous.x=40&previous.y=20 They also offer some colorful corn. I even recall 'shoepeg' corn too. Here is a link that might be useful: Legend corn seed source

Bt comes in 2 different forms - liquid and dust (Dipel is one brand). Each form works better in certain situations but I find that timing of application is much easier with the dust than with the liquid. In this particular situation the dust is more effective in my opinion. Wetting the pollen or the silks might interfere with effective pollination. Dusting with dry Bt does not. "To use mineral oil I read that you apply 5 drops to the silks after they pollinate but before they turn brown." Do keep in mind that is only one of several methods used to control corn earworms and it does not need to be quite so specific as counting the exact number of drops used or picking the exact day of application. When dealing with small corn crop numbers (where you aren't dealing with large numbers of plants) hand-picking the worms is easy to do and so is just popping open the ear top and dropping in a dollop of oil or Bt in any form. And last but not least, if growing only for personal use you just chop off the worm and damaged inch or 2 after harvest. It isn't as if he is going to eat the whole ear. ;-) Dave