Sweet Corn Populations

Sweetcorn is a significant crop in Illinois.  Some farmers grow and sell it for the fresh retail market and others grow it for processors.  While the acreage is not huge in comparison to field corn and soybeans, you can't travel too far in the summer without seeing someone selling sweetcorn.  I read and article today out of the University of Illinois where researchers are looking at competition of sweetcorn plants with each other as well as with weeds.  It is interesting that varieties that tolerate weeds well do not necessarily respond well to higher sweetcorn populations.  They estimate that higher populations could mean and extra $200 per acre in value to farmers.  In much the same way that different corn varieties respond differently to higher plant populations, sweetcorn does the same.  They expect future research to look into both weed tolerant and high population tolerant varieties.