How To Tell When Sweet Corn Is ready To Harvest

hello everyone welcome back Sunday August 4th and I'm in a corn patch to answer your question that I got a comment the other day I always try to answer any questions that I get sometimes they're pretty straightforward questions pretty easily answered [Music] sometimes not so much and question was how can you tell when sweet corn is ready to harvest and I answered via comment but I didn't feel that it was then feel I've done a really good job of it so instead I'm like a video and be honest this is the second time I've shopped the first part of this video I lost it the first time but anyhow so what we're looking for we want our sweet corn to be full but not overly mature so the first thing we're going to look at when we come up to a near corn we'll take this one right here for instance it's color the silk you can see it started to brown off and just the overall appearance of the ear of corn Chuck you want the you fill of it you want to shuck to be good and tight but not like the cobs trying to split out of it if it is is too full and you want to feel for the end of the ear to make sure it's full to the tip it's also a good way to check for worms so these are full enough to harvest that one's not that ones getting close that one's getting close its corn needs about two more to be at its peak this year for instance is is a good good ear of corn this is a nice patch of corn we've not started picking off of it yet so I don't want to there's another nice one that one's ready that one's ready that one of course is not ready you can just tell by the parents this one is not ready you can feel it's not pull Chuck still loose on it that ear is not ready that one's ready that one's ready that one's ready this one is not it's a it's closed but it's not so you can kind of get an idea this corn looks really good we're pleased with it so what I'm going to do is I'm gonna grab it here of this and then I'm gonna go try to find something it's over immature it's got some issues and we'll shuck them back and compare that that is ready to go this one I like see on sweet corn one stalk good ear another good ear so if you know that makes a big difference if you've got two good ears on a stalk your populations in twenty four thousand to an acre which is about what we plant between around around that it can vary a little bit I've noticed we do have some weeds in this this was treated a couple times for weeds still got some weeds in it so that's just the way it goes but we also got some really good corn in here hopefully we'll get this patch knocked out this week there's an acre of it you can see the end that's yeah I don't know how long that row is I think it's 900 feet to the end there's 24 900 feet rows in here I believe but we measured it for an acre it's it may be just a tick under an acre so there's about 20,000 plants here so you know if you do the math you can kind of figure out figure out we're shooting for 200 bushel per acre a bush will be in 48 years 1 bushel corn crate holds 48 years so uh but yeah that's it's a nice corn it's real nice corn that's next and then we got a patch at another place that is it's silken getting ready getting ready to come off and then after that patch will be this patch and there's there's just a tick over an acre in this one it's uh just a tick over an acre in this grant piece of ground here so we picked that one we go pick the other one we'll come back and pick this one that that's that's assuming that it makes corn and then after that after we picked this one we got another patch at the other place that we'll pick and then our final our final picking will be this patch here if it makes nice patches playing it you live to 10th 9th or 10th things nice and it was mud done a video on it grandma's mud but it looks it looks pretty good it actually looks pretty good no complaints on that to date but it's a that won't be that coin won't be in till or close to October problem is is that corn gets ready to castle the days will get shorter and the temperatures dropped so it won't manure as quick that corn over there this time of year once it gets about knee-high it doesn't take it long to mature on out and have ears on it but this area was the area that it's flooded a couple of times and you can see us get planted some I just left some of it out just just didn't plan it because didn't want to waste the seed and but it looks pretty good there's there's a kick over an acre in that to about acre and a half I would say if I was guessing but all together there's three and a half four acres corn there so we'll we'll get into that this week probably the middle of the week try to pick it out this week about time we wrap it up the other patch should come on time we wrap it up that patch is about three weeks out it should be coming on time we wrap it up we go back to the other place and then come here so and by that time we should be you're harvesting pumpkins like I said we'll go we'll go do some comparison on some ears of corn to try to answer the questions in the other video so hope it helps so hang on we'll go see what we can do okay we're in a patch that we cleaned up yesterday it's a different variety but I'm trying to find the ear that's over mature there's one we'll use for an example it's not over maturity but it's got another issue and we'll we'll talk about that in just a second let's see i'ma looking and I picked this pretty clean s T so it may be maybe more difficult I may have looking this section up here I may have to look in this section up here let's see what we can come up with to choo choo choo choo mm-hmm well this may be more difficult than I thought I may have done a better job picking it clean yeah I'll pick it into just for example Wow let's see what we can find I know there's some over mature corn in here noop and I'm a-looking let me come back to you let me playing fine one and then we'll go from her okay so what we got here is several years of corn we got this one this one this one this one and that one okay I hope you guys can see that so we got these there's corn this is the one I picked for a good ear okay so what let me yeah this one you can see if you squeeze it it's not pulled to the tip pull down here it's not pulled to the tip same with this one see that this one's pulled to the tip but I can feel a void right there with my thumb then it's got a problem and then this one's not pulled to the tip so let me get them shucked back and I'll show you what we're talking about okay we've got our corn shucked this here looking quite full but it is very mature if you can see the size of the kernels and if you mash on them yet - that would still be acceptable for market with the exception of this and I think USDA standards allow you 3/4 to an inch of non filled out on the tip I believe don't quote me on that this one see it as a squeeze on it takes quite a bit to popped kernels but it's still milky that would still be close to being acceptable here this one had poor pollination and you can see the size of the kernels how tightly there you can see it didn't fill out good up through here so so that would be no good I hear thunder or a dynamite wand same with this one and you can fill that through the shuck so when you're picking it's a you know it that that corn is very close to being past maturity this is their I picked up there you can see the kernels are much smaller still not quite filled out to the tip but it's early it is the that's right now ready for a fresh market okay another way you can tell is let me set you guys down here is to break these okay see this one's getting mature see the size of that kernel this one is still it can go a couple more days see the difference in that I know the camera shaky but that one and that one okay I hope that helps and answers the questions I mean you can tell just with them laying here the difference is in them this is the good ear these are getting past their prime and they get starchy and hard once they do that the other question was what's the chef's life well on sweet corn it is it's pretty time sweet corns one of those crops the sooner the short of the window from harvest to consumption the better on the older varieties in particular some of the newer varieties will retain their sugar a little better and super sweets and stuff but for the most part the sooner the better but I hope that helps explain that question if you are picking for a fresh market or something like that picking the cool of the day you have to get that heat out it'll last longer the cooler it is so but anyhow that was some questions we had and I hope that answers them if not ask some more like I said if I feel I need to do a video to thoroughly answer a question I will that's not a problem if I can if I had the time to do it I don't work on Sundays so sundays are my day off and so that's I a lot of times I'll try to do those videos on Sunday but if you did you like what we're doing please subscribe if you have subscribed we thank you see video you have a question about or comment about please do so we'll try to answer it hit that like button and until next time thanks everyone for watching we'll talk to you guys later bye

Channel: Mtnfarmer

Views: 2,409

Keywords: growing sweet corn, harvesting sweet corn, how to tell if sweet corn is ready to pick, small farmer, corn farmer, sweet corn farmer, farm life, picking sweet corn by hand, family farm, small scale vegatable grower

Id: Z36-DO5-Mfw

Length: 15min 8sec (908 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2019