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Tips for Growing Corn (Maize)

Planted July 27, 2001
Last tended to on October 16, 2024
Reading time: 3 minutes

by Mike Dunton

Planting Instructions:

Before sowing your seeds, the soil must be at least 65ºF for corn seeds to germinate, but this is at the bottom end of the scale. Optimal conditions are between 77ºF an 84ºF. Be patient or you will waste a lot of seed! Corn needs full sun and ample water. Make sure your garden location receives both. Corn is a wind-pollinated plant. Plant in blocks several rows wide to ensure ears fully fill with kernels.

Sow your seeds about one-half to one inch deep. They can be planted in rows, 3 to 4 inches apart, spaced 24 to 30 inches between rows. Some sources will recommend that you thin your plants to six to twelve inches apart. However, if the soil is fertile, and you water well, they do not seem to suffer from competition.

I grew up learning to sow three to four seeds in the shape of a four-inch triangle or square, every foot. If I still sowed seed manually, I would follow this same method. However, I now use a mechanical seeder for larger plots.

Improving Your Odds:

Starting seed in cell trays or small pots in a heated greenhouse provides optimal germination conditions, and therefore higher germination rates than direct sowing. It also allows you to start seeds earlier than normal while waiting for the ground to warm up, dry out, and become workable. Another added benefit is that the stands are more evenly spaced and it eliminates the need to follow the old corn planting rhyme:

“One for the cutworm, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow.”

Take care when removing the plants from the pots and transplanting into your garden. The roots are a bit tender and they will be adversely affected by rough handling.

We began using this method as part of our biodiversity preservation mission when we started growing rare corn varieties. The starting samples tend to be small (usually 100 to 200 seeds). This means that we need to do all that we can to guarantee success, and ensure the highest germination rates as possible – every seed has to count. The pictures below show a typical rare variety grow-out (this one happened to be ‘Sunshine’ sweet corn we rescued from oblivion in 2004).

Figure 1: Setting out plants – Rows marked and one tray set out. All supplies handy. Tools, garden notebook, etc.

Figure 2: Closer view of the plants in cell trays and an empty tray. Note plants in the ground.

Figure 3: Planting of the corn seedlings into the garden completed – 6/11.

Figure 4: Progress photograph – 6/20.

Figure 5: Progress photograph – 7/8.

Figure 6: Progress photograph – 7/30.

Figure 7: Progress photograph – 8/29.

Figure 8: Progress photograph – 10/1. As a result of these extra efforts, we successfully harvested enough seed to schedule a larger scale production grow out the following year, as well as having enough to re-introduce the variety, ‘Sunshine’ sweet corn, to the gardening public after it had been unavailable from any source for decades.

Additional Information:

• Under generally good storage conditions, corn seed should remain viable for 2 to 4 years. If dried and stored properly under constant refrigeration, a decade would not be unusual.
• Maize Genetics & Genomics Database
• For one of the best collections of rare and interesting varieties of corn seeds, check out the Victory Seed Company.
• Why is corn diversity important? Check out this article entitled, “Corn Disease Panics Stock Market, U.S. President.”

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