The Korean Journal of Crop Science ISSN:0252-9777(Print) 2287-8432(Online) 한국작물학회지

Fresh edible sweet corns demand relatively short period to harvest fresh ears, which can allow farmers to make a choice sweet corns for various cropping systems. For this reason, we were to find the optimum planting date of late-planted sweet corns to sell fresh ears in the autumn linked to cropping system with winter crops, investigating yield and properties of marketable fresh ears and growth traits of sweet corns (cv. 'Godangok' and cv. 'Guseulok') depending on planting dates such as 10 July, 20 July, and 30 July in Suwon 2012 and 2013, respectively. The 20 July-planted sweet corns showed the most fresh ear yield. However, the 10 July-planted and the 30 July-planted had 32% less yield caused by consecutive rainfall from 10 July through 20 July, and 15% less yield due to low air temperature during ripening than the 20 July-planted, respectively. The 10 and 20 July-planted sweet corns had average 140g of a fresh ear weight and 15% heavier ear than the 30 July-planted. For the July-planted sweet corns, silking days after planting (r=-0.80**), and harvesting days after silking (r=-0.97**) and planting (r=-0.91**) were highly negatively correlated with daily mean air temperature during the period, resulting in it takes 1,100 growing degree days (GDD) to harvest fresh ears from the July-planted sweet corns. The fresh ears of the 20 July-planted sweet corns are able to be harvested by early October. Therefore it will be a good choice for the cropping system based on winter vegetable cash crops such as temperate garlic and onion with medium or late maturity. Among three planting dates 20 July-planted sweet corns had the best field performance in every year considering fresh ear yield, ear size, and stability to grow.