When to cultivate sweet corn for crabgrass control

[East Texas Jim]

Here in east Texas crabgrass is a real problem. My corn is two inches tall and I noticed today crabgrass is emerging. We have had a week of warm weather and it s starting to grow. I figured Ill cultivate it this weekend and fertilize as well. Im needing help to know often to cultivate and what to do about this crabgrass.

 

[SVcummins]

As soon as you can drive and not take the corn plants out

 

[ET]

Cultivate as soon as you can follow the row and do before it looks like you need to,
be proactive.

 

[Traditional Farmer]

On sweet corn I use disk hlllers turned to throw the soil away from the row for the first cultivation.Can get close to the plants and not hurt them,then after the corn grows some I turn
the hillers around to throw the soil into the row to hill the corn and cover small weeds and grass in with the corn.

 

[caterpillar guy]

You could spray it with atrazine though use some caution on the amount you spray on. Not over a pound to the acres equivalent if you want to plant something else there next year or plant corn there next year to be sure on a carry over. A shallow cultivation will help the spray work better if it is dry.

 

[paul]

If you see weeds from the field edge you waited too long weeds will be too big to control.

Need to cultivate early and often.

Back in the day we would harrow the corn as the corn was cracking the ground.

Then cultivate about every 7 days.

This would amount to a month of cultivation, with the harrow and then the actual cultivation.

Grasses and Canadian thistle were miserable weeds that didnt ever really go away.

Paul

 

[Bret4207]

(quoted from post at 23:24:32 03/30/22) Here in east Texas crabgrass is a real problem. My corn is two inches tall and I noticed today crabgrass is emerging. We have had a week of warm weather and it s starting to grow. I figured Ill cultivate it this weekend and fertilize as well. Im needing help to know often to cultivate and what to do about this crabgrass.

I don't anything about Texas soil, but here in Northern NY I figured I could get 3 cultivations in before it got too high for the equipment I had. I can tell you that the places that got good cultivation grew way better corn than the places that got only 1 cultivation due to breakdowns.

 

[560Dennis]

Three days after planting

 

[RedGreenGuy]

1st pass was always at a walking speed to avoid plant covering. Your planting or any planting creates a war that you must win or the looser is your crop and profit. Cultivation should be done often to kill unwanted plants and disrupt their germination.

 

[fixerupper]

Do you have shields for the cultivator? Back in the day the early bird farmers were out there cultivating with the shields dragging on the ground allowing no dirt to spread into the row to cover weeds when the corn was 2" tall. Like the others said the sooner the better.