Sweet corn 2016

[superCslim]

Me and my uncle are going to be selling sweet corn this year. Would have sold it last year but the coons thought they needed it more than us. I want to know what the average price for sweet corn is? So we can see how much $$ we will be losing this year.....

 

[xtruckerbob]

Me and my uncle are going to be selling sweet corn this year. Would have sold it last year but the coons thought they needed it more than us. I want to know what the average price for sweet corn is? So we can see how much $$ we will be losing this year.....

Last year in North east Louisiana sweet corn was .25 a ear.

 

[rocketfish]

A close friend of mine grows 80 acres a year and sells it at $5 for a farmers dozen (14 ears).

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I believe we paid $15 per bushel last year...and drove 40 miles and waited in line for 3 hours. Had some tonight; it's wonderful.

 

[superCslim]

Wow! That's a wide range of prices. Lol

 

[OldMcDonald]

I believe we paid $15 per bushel last year...and drove 40 miles and waited in line for 3 hours. Had some tonight; it's wonderful.

It slightly amuses me how places around the world still use old Imperial measurements - here in Portugal water pipes are all measured in inches despite everything else being metric; you use BTU and bushels. Now comes the complicated part - when you buy a bushel of sweet corn, you buy it on the cob. Corn on the cob takes up a lot more volume than shelled corn. Corn on the cob with the leaves still on takes up even more space. How much corn do you get for your bushel, and do they have a proper bushel bucket?

Do not take it too seriously. I did a bit of research on this a few years ago when I was growing the crop and hand harvested the cobs to dry in the shed (I think you call such a corn store a crib?) and wanted an idea of the weight before I also hand stripped the grains off the cobs (shucked?). I only had two acres. I had seen that a bushel in the ear weighed more than a bushel of grain, which did not make sense. It took quite a while of more searching before I discovered that a bushel of ear corn is actually measured in DOUBLE bushels (ie twice the volume).

There are lots of drawn out threads on various forums arguing about all the different weights and how to calculate weight from bushels and vice versa. Stupendous reading if you have nothing better to do.

 

[Wood_Butcher_Dav]

Turn your question around, what are you paying for sweet corn seed? What about using GMO seed?


Dave

 

[ovrszd]

.25 cents p/ear in Northwest Missouri.

 

[ovrszd]

Just doing some head math.

Let's say you plant 11,000 population. Let's say 60% produce a sellable ear, that's 6,600 ears. Let's say you sell all of them at .25 cents p/ear, that's $1650 gross sales. Let's say it cost you $600 to plant and grow that crop, now we have $1050 profit after out of pocket expenses to get to a mature, ready to harvest crop. So,,, now you need to decide what additional costs are involved in marketing and how many hours of labor are involved in harvesting/sales. Once you have calculated that you'll know how much per hour you have the chance to earn. I say chance because in this calculation we have not factored in drought or weather related crop failure. Welcome to the Farmers World.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

I admit that after spending 16 years as a Research Chemist and using some pretty sophisticated instruments, measurements and calculations, my "bushel" of corn, as we euphemistically call it means very little. What you get is two of the large brown grocery sacks, full of fresh out-of-the-field still in the shucks corn-on-the-cob. Experience tells me the size, maturity and quality will vary from ear-to-ear and from sack-to-sack and from sacker-to-sacker. What with paying $15 per "bushel", what ever that turns out to be, waiting in line for 3 hours, driving 40 miles each way, spending the rest of the day cleaning, blanching and freezing the corn, exact measurements and price come secondary to the fact that really good corn is best fresh picked and immediately frozen.

I am told that as soon as the corn is picked, it activates an enzyme that begins converting the sugar in the corn to starch, thus reducing the quality and flavor very quickly. Blanching and freezing kills the enzyme and halts the process. The whole family loves this fresh-frozen corn, and it sure tastes great around New Years. It is probably the only thing in the world I would "willingly" wait in line that long for.