For farmers, December and January is a time to plan next year’s harvest and order seeds. If you plan to have a garden next year, you may already be flipping through seed catalogues. Doug Higgins, assistant professor and extension specialist at Virginia Tech, said some of the more popular seeds sell out, so you may want to get your orders in before February.
He and other researchers are trying to better understand one of the foods that’s grown across Virginia: sweet corn, and why it’s so susceptible to fungi and mold.
“It’s the worst, or it’s exasperated when you plant into cool, wet soils,” Higgins said.
He said commercial sweet corn growers try to plant as early as possible, because if you have the first corn of the season, you get the best price.
His team was recently awarded a specialty crop grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to collect seedlings from across Virginia and study what’s killing sweet corn.
“And then once we know which pathogens are there it will help us tailor in that seed treatment to be more specific to Virginia,” Higgins said.
Many sweet corn varieties already have fungicide on them, but over time pathogens have evolved to overcome it.
“So the treatment no longer works against them,” Higgins said. “Most growers don’t actually know what’s on their seeds to begin with, in terms of a seed treatment.”
Educating farmers on which work best in Virginia could help avoid crop loss. Eventually they hope to find, or make, a fungicide that can help more sweet corn in Virginia make it to market.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
