This past year after reading articles about deep corn seed planting I tried planting 4 inches deep in spring in Hawaii at the beginning of our rainy season. I had 100% germination, and a very successful crop. In former years I had been planting 1-2” deep and there would be holes in the rows that you can go back and put in more seed. Here that just doesn’t work. I will be trying the deeper planting again this year. Every place is so different. Experiment Experiment!
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Interesting! Just as you say, experiment experiment haha. 
Think I might have to try planting some seeds deeper than others and see which row does best!
Exactly and be sure it’s not too cold, that there are signs of Spring…..it is a little early. Where are you?
Oooh spring is here! Flowers blossoming and insects buzzing. I live in British Columbia, Canada but not in the stereotypical crazy cold snowy depiction… Im in the most mild climate of the country, on the west coast. This winter was super mild with only one snow fall that stuck on the ground for just a couple days. Current daytime temps are between 5-10c (41-50f) and forecast has me expecting 15c(59f) in a week or so with night time temps around 8c(46f). Think i might be able to plant my grain corn in the beginning of April if temperatures stay consistent!
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Hi! I’m also in zone 8b in Portland, Oregon. And, I always start my corn (popcorn) in the greenhouse and transplant it out. I’ve found I have less problems with rodents eating the kernels and more precise in-row and row-to-row spacing. And, I typically start corn in the GH around the first week in April. It is ready to tp very quickly - less than 2 weeks - so I like to have everything prepped to receive it as soon as I sow.
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Ooh thank you for sharing your experience! It is wonderful to have an opinion from someone with a similar climate and zone. Love the pics, looks like a nice setup alongside the squash growin together… especially with the trees in the background!
What kind of soil do you use for your seeds? I havent bought any soil mixes this year and for seed starting i just used a combination of my native soil with some compost, leftover perlite and an old bag of promix potting soil. I was thinking of starting a couple precious corn varieties indoors and transplanting outside because i really dont want to risk losing all of em. Ooh decisions decisions!
We purchase potting soil from a local nursery, but your DIY mix sounds great!
15C or closer to it is what it needs for growth. 10C you can’t expect to have much growth, but at least it doesn’t die. So putting them in the ground month earlier might only give a weeks headstart, if that. Depends of the weather. Looking at the the averages close to you, your april seems similar on average as may here. Over here it might be possible to sow early may, but often mid or later in the month. And generally they really get going late may or early june. One of the first years I was a little too eager to sow my sweetcorn late april after unusually warm period. They germinated, but then the cold came back with some snow/sleet. They did survive because min temps were just around 0C and I had them covered, but it would have been just as well if I had sowed them late may. So you have to consider how much in terms of growth they have headstart and how fast your grain corn are to tassel. Some of my grain corn are week or 2 faster than sweetcorn I have, but some might tassel about same time or little later. If you have a wide mix in your grain corn that you’d like to move slowly faster, you might need more headstart. Removing tassels might definately come into question.
Fair enough! Thanks, part of my goal to keep gardening to bare minimum cost and adapt seeds to my soil conditions quicker
What is your corn spacing like? Both row spacing and between plants? Looks soooo nice
You’ve given me much to consider, thanks! Seems like i may as well wait until temps are around 15c… though it is good to know corn can survive some colder weather once sprouting! I have quite the random mix so i imagine i will have fairly sporadic tassel timing, something to keep track of and note better for next year. I’ll definitely remember about choppin tassels if need be!
I wouldn’t take any specific temperature/date besides that it might be better that it is at least 10C for reasons mentioned before. Otherwise be flexible. It might not be worth it to put them in the ground right when it is 10C, but it might not be worth waiting for 15C. Little over 10C average and you already get some growth. Just be conscious about all possible scenarios at that time of the year. My tactic is to look at the 2 week forecast and see if expected weather can coast me to realm of secure temperatures for different species. Ofcourse it’s better to play save with forecasts. On average frost date you can probably still have frosts that can kill off corn, although those would be quite rare. So even unsure longterm weather forecast might be enough to give certainty there wont be killing frosts. Another thing is also rain. Based on weather averages in your area you have quite a wet spring, which can be problem in itself. So there is definetely lot to consider. The benefit of playing with the weather is that you are also choosing more cold hardy/fast plants that can then ease that cross pollination problem.
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Dont need to tell me twice about being flexible! Ive made sure to step back and observe, experiment and be open to failure or various unexpected results. Flexible is far less stressful 
I also frequently look at the 14day weather forecast but it can be so unreliable.. man can only predict natural weather patterns so well! But i agree it is a good way to estimate/plan ahead. And yes, i have LOTS of rain in the springtime which is something i have been concerned about in regards to rotting the corn seed. Id like to push the limits a little bit when it comes to planting early for grain corn specifically, since i also have very wet autumn which could be a challenge for drying down corn cobs outdoors on the stalks. I know i could bring them inside to finish drying if i absolutley had to but that isnt how i would prefer to do things if i can control that factor. Cold hardy/frost tolerant plants sounds very ideal and definitely a priority for my personal garden goals!
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Yes, those work more as a hint of the future, but they aren’t completely useless. Like if the whole period is way cooler or warmer than average, then it’s unlikely to get the opposite. Or if it looks like temperatures are going to plummet after a week, it might be better to wait. Personally I’m a little weather nerd and know what is average for every season, but also what kinda extremes are possible which help in terms of estimating what might be save to plant (not that I don’t get wrong, but then usually there wasn’t point of waiting either). If you aren’t familiar with the weather patterns in your area, you could see old observations. Like when there has been hard frosts at latest or extended periods of cool weather (in the case of corn, highs little over/under 10C). What I have followed long term forecasts here, they say that current forecast projects the cold air from the break up of polar vortex to be headed to North America so that might affect your weather in the next month or so. That might make decision for you that you don’t have to think about sowing corn in early may.
That is unfortunately harder to prepare to. It looks like it does get less frequent as spring progresses, but even here we can get too much rain in the spring, and averages aren’t even close to yours. Cool weather and even little rain can be too much.
You should try to get some atomic orange or other fast variety in to your mix. Those shouldn’t have any problem being ready in time. Over here it has been under 90 days to dry on the stalk (that’s 90 days of somewhat good temps for corn). Or dry enough. I have the same problem with moisture so no point leaving them to fully dry, but only wait until husk starts to dry.
Being a weather nerd is super advantageous! I want to know all of those details about my area as well but only just started paying real attention to it. I found weatherspark.com through here which is handy, i just always forget to refer to it haha. I actually had snow fall a couple days ago and even though it melted by the end of the day, it was totally unexpected.. so i guess only time will tell how things go this spring!
Yes, the rain can be tricky. I’m wondering if it’ll be best for me to pre-germinate my seeds which i was already considering since i think it would be fun to innoculate em with local wild grass endophytes. Plus then i can chuck out the duds that didnt sprout which helps my spacing right away.
I’ll look into atomic orange, thanks for the recommendation! Though that’ll be a next year purchase, since ive got plenty of seeds right now. I was on the hunt for painted mountain corn seeds which are supposed to be good for damp cooler climates, plus the seeds i eventually found were sourced fairly locally which is an added benefit for adaptability!
That does have some good info, but personally I think weather wunderground is better. It has the same info, but it’s a little more clear. Although I only use that to look for weather statistics for foreign locations. Better would be some local source that might be more comprehensive. Both are missing ground level measurments, which would be good to have. Although you can estimate the lowest by subtracting 5C from the day low to get close approximate what is possible.
That does have it pros and cons. I would say without is better. Spacing in a way is easier, but I would in any case make early selection for local adaption so I would in any case sow more than needed. When you pre-germinate you would select for that also which might skew it one way or other. Innoculation you should be able to do just with a short soak until they have absorbed themselves full. I do have to say that after trying different ways many years, sowing dry seed to the ground is a lot easier. Corn can quite easily produce way more than you need so that you can freely oversow and just let them battle it out, just doing occasional culling to give them space to grow.
Painted mountain is good for diversity. Otherwise it’s not fast enough for my climate, or if you want to give space in time between sweet corn and grain corn. There are some more varieties that are just as fast as atomic orange (also it’s sister variety bronze orange). However some of them seem like true dwarfs with smaller cobs, whereas those two are only short, but have normal to big cobs. I have had 3 long ones in one so there is now drawback with the smaller size and fast maturity like there might be with others. It might still be worth to try all sort of varieties, even if they aren’t ideal and do selection later when they have mixed.
Only thing that you have to make sure with fast varieties is to sow them later the first year to have cross pollination. Might be worth it to get seeds to try a little this year (like just few plants) because it might be little hit and miss with trying to get them cross pollinate. usually the difference is 2-3 weeks, but you can’t really count that from the sowing speed of yearly growth can vary from year to year. Having the others 10-15cm long should be good headstart, but you can do several sowings to give you better change.
Ooh i always appreciate new website recommendations! Im not great at navigating complicated data so the easier the layout is, the better! I usually just rely on the weather forecast and carry on from there so your ground level temp estimate is handy, thank you.
Yeah, im super flippy floppy with my gardening strategies so perhaps i will just give em a short soak and then pop em in the ground like so. I sure hope the corn overproduces like you say! I like the idea of just letting em battle it out. I will be pretty hands off this year. Nice to have some tips from someone with far more experience than myself!
Honestly, i have so many random varieties of corn seed that i have no idea what to expect in terms of pollination timing or stalk height. The GTS is obviously all mixed together so i decided to add in all of the other corn varieties i had… kinda regret that but i dont have a keen eye to recognize which is what yet so i cant separate em now! This year im just keeping it super random, focus on saving lots of seeds and will be more selective next year as i gain familiarity. If i grow some amount of corn, I’ll count it as a success haha
Im eager to manage both grain and sweet so im just gonna hope for the best and plant them a month apart or longer. Rookie mistake? Only time will tell
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Separate out those that have a distinct “dent” on top. That’s your dent corn. Field corn is a form of dent corn, and although I’m not certain I believe sweet corn is also dent corn. Sweet corn looks wrinkled.
Your flour corns will be smooth on the top. Popcorn is a form of flour corn. So if you decide to separate them, dent from smooth is a first step.
Good to know, thank you! Was leaning towards a more flour dominant grain corn but curious how much of a difference it would really make if i had some dent cross pollinating. I own a grain mill so im sure itll grind em up nicely. Tasty corn flour and corn meal is all im after 
Well, ah um, I don’t think that is quite right at least not as I understand it. The way I understand it, is that on the inside of a corn kernel there is the germ, or baby corn plant and then there is something called endosperm. The endosperm for lack of a better explaination is what the baby plant eats during germination.
As the kernel develops the endosperm starts out as mostly sugar so pretty much any corn is sweet if picked at exactly the right stage which with some corn might be without too much exaggeration, a few minutes. Later as the kernel matures the endosperm begins turning to starch. There are two basic kinds of this starch, hard starch and soft starch. Corn with all soft starch is flour corn. Corn with all hard starch is flint corn. A specific mix of the two can result in a dent in the top of the kernel and most all the big industrial corn has the dent, so they call it dent corn but other more heirlooms are also dent. Flint and flour though have one or the other, hard or soft, so they don’t have the dent. I’m pretty sure popcorn has extremely hard flint endosperm. Generally hard endosperm gives the kernels a shiny or even glass like appearance like glass gem ornamental corn. Soft endosperm looks a lot duller.
Sweet corn is a bit of a different critter. I’m pretty sure it is also a hard flint corn but from its perspective it has a problem. It doesn’t have enough endosperm; it has a genetic makeup that prevents the sugar being converted to starch. If it’s severe the dry kernel will be all puckered and shrunk up. When it’s planted the baby corn sprout doesn’t have anything to eat. That’s one reason modern sweet corn is so often covered in poison, to protect sprout while it develops some roots and finds something to eat.
There are lots of kinds of sweet corn but by far the best to me are the very old types like Blue Jade and Hooker’s Indian Sweet. A more modern one until the early 1900s called Aunt Mary’s is also very good. I’ve never seen much of anyone else do it but if a sweet corn kernel is allowed to dry fully in the field it isn’t shrunken or puckered at all, but the skin itself is very wrinkled. At least that’s so with the old ones I like, I don’t know about the new sh2, synergistic and whatever else they sell now.
As far as when to plant corn, I see you are in zone 8. I would be planting very, very soon. Actually, I probably would have already planted.
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This reference lists field corn and dent corn as the same thing, and flour corn is the type without a dent (also referred to as flint corn, splitting the two primary types into dent and flint).