I don't know much of anything about potatoes, but I can discuss sweet corn. I don't grow it for the project but I am involved in the whole process. What was wrong with your corn? It could have been the seed, but more likely something else. Corn seed will last for 3 years at room temperature. What variety did you plant and how did you fertilize it?
The problem with corn for us is that it's such a short harvest interval. That is, it basically comes in all at once - even if we stagger plant. It only does well here if planted early and matures before summer heat sets in. We plant it on 2/15 and sometimes lose it to frost and have to re-plant - 3/15 is about our last chance, maybe 4/1. Ater that, the yields and quality are poor. It will be an all summer crop for you though. We usually harvest it in May.
Earworms are a major problem with our clientele - people don't accept a worm in the corn anymore. There are no worms in store corn because it's genetically modified with a bt gene - 90% of all commercial corn is now GMO. The seed is not available in small quantities, and we buy GMO sweet corn seed in a bag of 25M for about $250. It plants three acres (we only plant one a year) so we can get three years out of a bag. Those smaller bags are hard to get - it mostly comes in a bag of 100M. It hasn't completely stopped the earworms but slows them down enough to sell the corn to the public. If it weren't for the GMO seed, we would not grow it because it has to be sprayed with insecticide twice weekly to control the worms - and that's more than we are comfortable with. The Attribute (GMO from Syngenta) corn tastes just as good as the old Merit I planted for years, but the ears are smaller and not as fat (smaller kernels).
What's your first name?
Jack
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