Corn Fertilizing

I have been reading some previous comments about fertilizing corn. I plan to plant Kandy Korn and Silver Queen this year and am ignorant about fertilizing. Could you give me some idea of what to use and how to apply?

Jeff

I think corn needs high nitrogen - but I'll bet there are some REAL corn experts on here that will be more detailed, so I'll be watching your thread since I'm growing some corn this year too. Indian ornamental corn and Bodacious. Stacey

^_^

This message was edited Jan 28, 2009 1:15 PM

Any other advice on corn?

Corn is a heavy feeder. I f you want to grow at the spacings some folks are recommending, it takes a lot of fertility. Heavy application of chicken manure or 10-10-10 is cheaper than fish emulsion, but any high nitrogen fertilizer will work. If you can irrigate or have good rainfall, a sidedressing of ammonium nitrate, Urea, or chicken manure is advisable. BUT without the water it can burn up the plant. If you have room you can plant like folks did before all these modern inventions and use 24 inch or greater spacing.

Plant beans in with your corn. The beans will fix the nitrogen that is in the soil and make it more readily avaiable to the corn. You get two crops on same space.

Thanks Farmerdill and Thanks Kathy. Great info. I like the idea of interspersing beans in with the corn; that makes alot of sense. Efficient plus I can space the corn out a bit further, but not 'waste' the space.

There ya go. So when do we all come over for some good roastin' ears?

Farmerdill,

Is ammonium nitrate or urea sold commercially for the home gardener? I surfed the Net and was surprised at the number of recommendations to side dress fertilizer with a very high percentage of nitrogen. I guess this is consistant with the products you recommend using. What exactly to you mean irrigate? I'm assuming a furrow next to the corn row with hose water running down it is sufficient. What about daily watering with a hose from overhead?

Sorry for all the questions. I have grown corn in the last two years and it did not turn out well. I want this season to be different. Using fertilizer will help. As an aside I also learned that onions are heavy feeders also.

Jeff, most farm supplies will have a granulated fertilizer in that range in 40 or 50lbs sacks. Ammonium nitrate is pretty restricted since Oklahoma city. Home gardeners may be better off using Nitrate of Soda, which is much less concentrated. Corn needs a minimum of one inch of water per week, when heavily fertilized. But when incoporating a high nitrogen side dressing, it needs to follow immediately. A one inch irrigation once a week is preferable. Shallow watering daily cause shallow roots and more harm than good. You want the top six to eight inches of the soil to get wet.

You can grow corn in average soil without any type of fertilizer. But you have to give it lots of room. Remember that in the first half of the 20th century corn spacing was 42 inches each way (Check planting).

Farmerdill,

Thanks for the good information. It's somewhat ironic we're talking about this as it was sleeting today. Spring will arrive.