Soil prep & maintenance for corn

[blackthumbmary]

The only soil prep I did for my corn is adding a scant amount of aged horse manure which I tilled into the ground a month before planting. I have clay soil but..ahem...have not done a soil test (aside from testing the PH).

My Hookers corn planted April 2 is now mid calf high and looks relatively good..except a few plants have slight yellowing/browning on the tip of the lowest leaf (each plant has about 4-6 leaves on average). Only the tip of the lowest leaf is affected, the rest of the plant is a normal shade of green. I suspect that the effected plants might be hungry for more nitrogen. It seems like about 1/8 of the plants have this -and most of them are on one side of the field...so I suspect that half has poorer soil ( or else my manure application was sloppy).

Any suggestions for adding nitrogen? I have more aged manure from my horses but I am not sure that has enough nitrogen in it.

I will try and get some pictures in case low nitrogen is not the culprit.

I thought of growing beans but was not sure my sweet corn would be strong enough be used by the beans as support (as in a three sisters type set up). We get a lot of wind and I had visions of my bean laden corn stalks going over in a strong wind gust. Perhaps I am mistaken though...

Any suggestions for a good nitrogen rich winter crop to replenish the soil for next year's corn? I was thinking of planting red clover.

Next year I would like to do a much better job prepping the soil..composting and creating a soil cover in the vein of Alan's 'La Bonne Terre' soil. But this subject belongs in another thread alas...

Thanks!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

May 4, 2010 21:15:33 GMT -5 blackthumbmary said:

I thought of growing beans but was not sure my sweet corn would be strong enough be used by the beans as support (as in a three sisters type set up). We get a lot of wind and I had visions of my bean laden corn stalks going over in a strong wind gust.

Ha!

I have visions of a mast with guy-wires attached to keep it upright in the wind.

Regards,
Joseph

[grunt]

Mary: I think you can use un-aged manure for side dressing, if you are careful not to let it come in direct contact with the corn. I sometimes do it with hot chicken manure (haven't done it on corn, but tomatoes have no problem with it). I've done it by just putting in on top of the mulch, and by lifting the mulch and sliding it under. I realize your corn is a bit closer together than my tomatoes, but it should still be possible to do. If you are watering with drip irrigation, make a manure tea, filter it well, and buy one of those brass siphon injectors for your drip system. Doing it that way, you can use hot manure and not worry about it.

[blackthumbmary]

Grunt - thanks for the advice regarding the usage of fresh manure. This is great news since I am almost out of aged manure-having given some away to friends and family. Fresh manure is always on hand though

The 'manure tea' idea sounds great and I will probably end up using it once we get an irrigation system (just recovering from property, state and federal taxes at the moment LOL). In the mean time I will try slipping some on and under a layer of mulch. I will be careful so as not to have it touch the corn directly.

Joseph - don't laugh...I have seriously considered trying to devise a system of propping up my corn. We are on top of a tall hill with exposed sides (save for one) and the wind can be pretty bad at times.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

May 5, 2010 8:36:01 GMT -5 blackthumbmary said:

Joseph - don't laugh...I have seriously considered trying to devise a system of propping up my corn. We are on top of a tall hill with exposed sides (save for one) and the wind can be pretty bad at times.

I have always gardened in areas surrounded by trees, so when people talk about their corn getting blown down, or using the stiff-stalk synthetic in their breeding program my eyes just glaze over, since I don't have a clue. Once in a while one corn stalk tips over during a thunder storm but yawn....

So this year, I added a new field, and I about got blown out of the field while I was tilling, and I had to put on my winter parka in May because of the wind chill, and the trees are all leaning sideways. So maybe by the end of the summer I will understand. And maybe next spring I will plant my corn in a different field.

Regards,
Joseph

[nuts]

As good nitrogen fixing crops red clover is ok but I suggest to consider vicia faba and vicia sativa.
Vicia faba known as fava beans(feves in french) and feveroles(very small fava beans,I don't know the english name).
vicia sativa(vesce) is a climbing vicia species,and mix well up with vicia faba because v faba has upright stems that gives support to the sativa.
vicia sativa is often mixed with a cereal(I prefer rye,but it can be something else like barley or oats),but mixing it with vicia faba maybe will give an even more nitrogen rich crop.

You can plant in fall(october-december,depending the climat)) and this will give a good mass of green in may in my climate, but it seems that you have more than a month of advance compared to my climate.Maybe it's even possible for you to harvest the viciagrain and use the vicia straw as nitrogen amendment,and plant the corn after.You could have two crops in one year!

I think the small feveroles are better for this purpose than the huge fava beans because both give the same size of plants but this means a lot more of seedstock for the fava beans.

Just doing some promotion for my 'fetish' crops.But they are not widely known.

By the way feveroles and vesces are good food for birds,pigeons will get crazy about it!

[blackthumbmary]

Nuts - je suis ravi de fair votre connaissance! Merci pour votre conseille concernant le vicia faba et le vicia sativa J'adore les fèves...mais je n'ai jamais mangé des féveroles.

Sorry I could not resist...the opportunity to speak or write French is somewhat limited here in southern Indiana (save for Bloomington).

Any suggestion as to where I can get true féveroles? Regular fava beans are easy enough to find but not féveroles.

My horses will love the vicia sativa so maybe I will plant some in their pasture as well as my garden plots.

Joseph - I hope that the crops in your new windy field survive! That sounds far windier than my hill top! In fact I feel positively wimpy after hearing about your experiences!

I also envy your other tree enclosed pasture though. Only the occasional stalk tipping over during a thunderstorm....sigh....

[Joseph Lofthouse]

May 5, 2010 20:29:43 GMT -5 blackthumbmary said:

Joseph - I hope that the crops in your new windy field survive! That sounds far windier than my hill top! In fact I feel positively wimpy after hearing about your experiences!

I also envy your other tree enclosed pasture though. Only the occasional stalk tipping over during a thunderstorm....sigh....

I at least gotta try corn once. I am mostly planting squash, melons, and tomatoes (without cages) in the windy field. It has been growing weeds for years, so I figure that the first year I gotta grow plants that shoot up quick and vigorous and stand a chance against the weeds.

(I also got silly and planted Jerusalem Artichokes. Perhaps the wind will take them for a ride.)

The field is located at the base of a 5000 foot tall mountain, and there is little between me and the mountain except hay fields.

[grunt]

Joseph: Maybe you should be trying dwarf varieties?

[nuts]

May 5, 2010 20:29:43 GMT -5 blackthumbmary said:

Nuts - je suis ravi de fair votre connaissance! Merci pour votre conseille concernant le vicia faba et le vicia sativa J'adore les fèves...mais je n'ai jamais mangé des féveroles.

Sorry I could not resist...the opportunity to speak or write French is somewhat limited here in southern Indiana (save for Bloomington).

Any suggestion as to where I can get true féveroles? Regular fava beans are easy enough to find but not féveroles.

My horses will love the vicia sativa so maybe I will plant some in their pasture as well as my garden plots.
....

salut, black thumbmary,

a pic(feves,feveroles and vesce)


I pursued my feveroles here.
www.biaugerme.com/
If you have troubles ordering in france pm me and I can send you some.

[raymondo]

Here in Australia, feveroles are called tick beans, or sometimes horse beans. They are grown almost exclusively as stock feed. They are sold by the sackful at the local rural supplies store, what we used to call a stock and station agent. Perhaps you will find feveroles in the US equivalent.

Nuts, I tried once 4 or 5 years ago to order seed from France. They would not send seed outside the EU. It's odd because other European countries (like Italy and Germany) have no problem sending seeds outside the EU.

[blueadzuki]

you can also somtime find these smaller kind of favas at some greek and middle eastern groceries, they're popular amoung some of thier customers.

I'm just sorry that the two truly tiny fava beans if found once in a bag or Indian Corainder (jet black about the size of a bb pellet) didn't survive the year I planted them, it seems to me that if the smaller seeded feverole is a better choice for green manure than the larger fava bean, those would have been better still. Oh well at least I still have the vetch (from the same source) (actually tecnically I have two vetches from those bags (they regularly contain both V. sativa and V. hirsuta) But I dont like useing hirsuta (it can get a little over agressive plus the flowers aren't as pretty)

[grunt]

Purcell Mountain Farms has one variety = www.purcellmountainfarms.com/Marrone%20Bell%20Beans.htm . They aren't actually a seed company, but a food source, but they guarantee that all of their bean seeds will germinate (for use as sprouts). This is where I got seed for Monk Peas and Marrone Bell Peas (actually a very small fava bean)