Early crop has sweet corn growers pickin’ and grinnin’

COLUMBUS – Sweet corn production in southern Ohio is early this year, about 10 days ahead of schedule and two to three weeks earlier than the rest of the state.

Eric Barrett, an Ohio State University Extension agent in Marietta, Ohio, said the unusually hot weather before Easter helped boost crop production.

Growers in southern Ohio planted sweet corn around April 1.

Already picking.

Sweet corn harvest normally begins just after July 4 but some farmers, like Jerry Witten of Witten Farms in Muskingum River Valley, are harvesting crop already. Witten said he began picking large numbers of ears June 25.

“This is the earliest I’ve seen sweet corn ready for harvest in quite a few years,” he said.

“Many people in northern Ohio are still buying their sweet corn from Florida,” Barrett said. “We want them to know that sweet corn grown locally is now available.”