Hard to say. Was the Peaches and Cream fresh seed from a reliable source? if so you may want to replant. should not need any additional tilling. Just stick the seeds in the soil where you wish them to grow. Cool soil can be a problem but should not be in your area, nor is Peaches and Cream particularly cold sensitive. 10 days should be plenty for germination. Other factors can be too wet or too dry. If you use concentrated fertilizers that come into contact with the seed,they sometimes disrupt germination. If you have seed left over for the Silver Princess You may want to interplant some of that to test whether the Pand C seed was at fault.

Agree that I'd just replant now. Although I can't tell about proper planting time in your area I guess you still have plenty of time to get in a crop. You may get some late germination of some of the first planting but they are easy enough to remove.

I'm always inclined to blame it on the uneven spring weather than on the seed since I firmly believe that the seed itself is seldom at fault but that choice is yours.

Dave

Before you replant just do a little scratching to uncover a few feet of row and examine the seeds. If they are sprouting then you just need to wait a little longer. You mentioned cooler than normal weather but didn't hint in soil moisture. Dry conditions can cause prolonged delay in germination but will not require reseeding. An uneven crop is not desirable, so if seeds are rotting just rework soil and reseed. As a general rule sow seed slightly deeper into dryer soil. Also if soil is cooler I would not start with a supersweet Sh2 variety as they are usually more difficult to germinate in cooler soil- the shrunken seed needs to swell more than other seeds prior to germination.

Replanting is not a unusual issue for early planted corn. My cousin once had to replant 1800 acres of field corn that he sowed too early. I pushed the limit last week with a few rows but my excuse was to test my new notill vacuum planter.

I'd say give it another week. If nothing by then dig under, and if you don't find any sprouts under the soil then replant.

I generally plant my Indian corn on April 1st regardless if it's cool. But that's because indian corn is pretty hardy. Both seeds and plants. Snow is not a problem for mine, but then again i've bred mine to be that way.

Sweet corn seeds are much less hardy, especially for seed germination in cool or cool/wet soil. So perhaps you just hit some bad luck with cold soil and sweet corn seeds rotting away. It's known to happen.

Thanks for the advice offered here.

I finally replanted yesterday. I purchased a new package of seeds for this go-around and think I know what may have gone wrong. The first pack of seeds I planted were by Ferry-Morse, picked up at Home Depot or Lowe's, and I had a new, unopened package left over after the first planting. The second package was from Lake Valley and bought at a local nursery last weekend. Both say they were packaged for 2016.

In a side-by-side comparison of the seed corn, the Ferry-Morse kernels looked far more shriveled, while the Lake Valley kernels looked more like actual kernels of corn.

I soaked both packages of seeds for about 8 hours before planting yesterday. By planting time, the Ferry-Morse kernels were mushy, while the Lake Valley seeds were still fairly firm.

I think what may have happened the first go-around is that I kind of pushed the seeds into the ground with my finger to the specified depth and covered them with soil. These seeds were so mushy that I may have inadvertently destroyed most of them as I pushed them into the soil.

With yesterday's planting, I was careful to plant one Ferry-Morse seed on the left and one Lake Village seed to the right to examine the germination rate between the two. I'll report back in around two weeks to report on the germination, hopefully.

Well, there was no comparison -- The Lake Valley seed corn was far superior. After about a week, I got about 98% germination rate from the Lake Valley seeds, and about a 5% germination rate from the Ferry Morse seeds. I know what seeds I'll avoid in the future.

Unfortunately, apparently the resident wild turkeys were as happy with the newly sprouted corn as I was, and ate every last sprout this afternoon. Dagnabbit! I'll have to replant (again) and fence the bed off. Getting a much later start to the corn season than I had hoped. :(

Glad to hear you figured it out. Yes, the corn on the left looks like it has the SH2 gene which codes for super extra sugar, but the downside is they are much much more difficult to germinate (and even worse in cold soil) compared to their more traditional SU and SE counterparts. I've also heard reports that while they are sweeter they taste bad flavor wise. Presoaking those kinds of seeds are probably a bad idea. But glad to hear you found a type to work. Interesting that they are both listed as "Peaches and Cream" yet they have different sugar genes.

If you'd like to learn more about the different sweet corn genes here is a link or two to some very knowledgeable folks:

http://alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/4147/explanations-on-su-sh2-genes

http://alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/2373/open-pollinated-se-sh2-varieties?page=3

http://alanbishop.proboards.com/search/results?who_at_least_one=497&captcha_id=captcha_search&what_at_least_one=sh2&display_as=0&search=Search

Unfortunately, There are two varieties that are sold as Peaches and Cream. One is very good, the other not so good. The 1967 version developed by Burgess is a 70 day su. The other has a slighly longer DTM and is sometimes listed as Peaches and Cream EH ( Everlasting Heritage) Probably a variant of the original but different in performance.

Thanks for the links to those very informative articles, Keen101. It appears that I was mistaken to think Ferry-Morse's shrunken seeds were inferior. Apparently, that's what they're supposed to look like (assuming they're SH2). And they're inherently fragile seeds to begin with. The benefit appears to be a sweeter corn with a longer harvesting time. I may try these seeds again, not soak them, be careful with the planting depth, and place them in the holes very gingerly.

Farmerdill, when you say one version of Peaches and Cream is good while the other is not so good, can you tell me which is which?

Just visited my corn patch and found that it looks like the turkey merely chopped off the tops of the corn sprouts, yet the tubular sprouts continue to grow. Are they likely to grow into successful corn stalks?

And with Farmerdill's comment regarding two varieties of Peaches and Cream, I'm wondering whether I should start from scratch anyway, this time only planting seeds from the same packet. If they are truly two different varieties, might they cross pollinate and affect the quality of the corn?

Not much danger in that. Neither are SH2. I prefer the 80 day version. Few of the early varieties (60-70 day) come close to a midseason variety in taste or production.

Neither are SH2? I thought that's what the "sh" in "SH2" stood for, shrunken, so I thought that these shrunken Ferry-Morse seeds would likely be SH2, especially after reading Keen101's post. I thought that perhaps one package of seeds was a Peaches & Cream SH2, and perhaps the other was a Peaches & Cream SE, though neither packet indicates which sugar gene they possess.

By the way, both seed packets say "Peaches & Cream Hybrid" and list 80 days to harvest.

We were just talking today about how poorly our corn was doing and how about 2 feet of corn never came up. I bought Ferry Morse seeds. I should have known better. I had bad luck with them before. They were on the same rack at the store as the Burpee seeds and I didn't even notice. One time I bought herb sage seeds from them and a pretty blue flowered sage came up instead.

The original is a 70 day su, The 80 day is probably an Se, but is usually listed seperately as part of the EH series. http://garden.org/foodguide/browse/veggie/corn_getting_started/398 Wikipedia states that EH was an early designation that became Se

Zzackey, sorry to hear about your corn. I know how disappointing it is to have invested the hard work, expense, and hope on a crop that doesn't live up to its potential.

Farmerdill, if this shrunken Ferry-Morse seed is as you say, an Se and not an SH2, then I'm back to my original opinion that this seed is, indeed, far inferior to the Lake Valley seed.

Can't say anything about the quality of Ferry Morse seeds, but it does make you wonder if you indeed got a true hybrid. And assuming you did there is no reason to assume with a variety name as old as "peaches and cream" that the sources are the same. Heck you could have got a mix of random yellow sweet corn and white sweet corn. Hard to tell. There is obviously a difference in sugar genes between the two from your picture. Whether that is an SE vs an SU or an Sh2 vs an SU, or whatever i don't know. But i'm not surprised that corn that varies for appearance in the seeds would also vary for robustness and or growth, or in your case germination.