Buckmine,

I appreciate that you must think I know what I'm doing planting corn. Truth is, I learned the important things through bad experiences, good advice, and experimenting.

First, the others are right, sweet corn is not as good for a winter food source for several reasons. It does attract animals all through its growth, matures too early, does not dry properly for winter, and does not stand up to wind/winter weather.

Go with a local corn from your co-op. If money was not a problem - I'd go with a good picking corn (bags run $60-$75 - 1 bag does 2-1/2 acres). Personally, we use silage corn, because its almost 1/2 the price - and we still get sufficient ear growth for the Nitrogen we can afford to put down. Silage corn also grows to around 8 ft - and provides excellent cover.

If you are planting corn you really need to put it in rough blocks of at least 2 acres. This is to insure decent cross polination and reduce animals eating it before its time. Long, skinny plots of corn alongside woods will be a disappointment - you'll be lucky to have any ears left going into winter if any make it through the fall.

As far as Raccoon Problems - I cannot say we've had a bad amount of them. The coons usually only really hit the corn bad when its in the milk stage, and after the first couple frosts. We have a decent coon population, but coon do not do near the damgage as birds, and squirrels in the fall. The other worst offender are GEESE, 2 weeks after planting. Geese will walk up and down the rows plucking the new shoots from the ground, and only eating the kernal, and leaving the shoot on the ground. A good size flock can wipe out a couple acres in a day or two! Watch out for them! Turkeys will too, but not as bad, they usually eat the whole shoot - and they are not as brave as geese.

Deer can really hit the new corn growth and will nibble the tops right through mid July - Generally deer will not completely ruin a stand because of the peculiar way corn grows. As long as the main stem is left in tact, and only the leaves are munched on - the corn will usually still ear out. Corn grows from the center up - by this I mean - when corn is knee high, the section of the plant that will become the ears are just coming out of the ground at that point, the tassels will break the ground when the plant is close to waist high. Its at this point that corn grows REALLY FAST. The leaves become tough, and the deer will all but stop eating it until the corn ear has developed in mid August. Even then the majority of the plants will make it.

I plan to start a post soon covering planting aspects, cultivating, weed prevention, etc soon. I'll be looking for some nuggets of information, and I hope others will post too. Look for it soon -