Our top 3 Sweetcorn varieties for early, mid and late season

March 18, 2022 6:02 pm

What are the best Sweetcorn varieties for commercial growers?

Tozer Seeds have been trialling sweetcorn varieties since the mid 1940s, when Dr Dermot Dawson, our current chairman’s father, was a pioneer in the field. You can see from this early photo that things haven’t changed all that much.

Early sweetcorn trials at Pyports HQ of Tozer Seeds

Years of expertise in sweetcorn trials:

Charlotte Wheeler and Isobel Tickner in sweetcorn trials
Isobel Tickner and Charlotte Wheeler

We still continue to trial hundreds of varieties in the UK and Spain every year. Of these only a few actually make it to a second year of screening.

In fact it takes around 8 years for a new hybrid in development to finally reach your field with over 95% of varieties culled before they reach this stage.

This wealth of experience means that you can be sure you’re only planting the best.

Sugars in Sweetcorn

All of our super sweet varieties carry the sh2 gene. This is important to know because they need to be isolated from other types of corn which include normal sugary (su), sugary enhanced (se) and synergistic varieties.

Therefore we recommend a planting distance of 300 feet /90 metres or 12 days difference is silking maturity.

Sweetcorn varieties we recommend:

Early Season Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn Earlibird
Sweetcorn Earlibird

Earlibird is our biggest selling early season variety across Europe with sales of over 75 million seeds a year. What makes it really special is its tolerance to cold soil. Because of this it is a key variety for growers in northern Europe for the early start of the season

Mid Season Sweetcorn

Goldcrest is our mid season variety. It has excellent shape and fantastic flavour which is why it is the variety which our own staff always choose to take home.

Sweetcorn Goldcrest
Sweetcorn Goldcrest

Late Season Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn Alliance
Sweetcorn Alliance

For late season maturity we’re really pleased to offer you Alliance. This is a new line for us and so far we’ve been incredibly pleased with the results. It has an ideal ear size and it achieves excellent yields which make it perfect for the shipping market. It has a great husk protection, husk package and excellent tolerance to lodging all of which are fantastic advantages for our growers.

Contact our Account Manager for Sweetcorn

If you would like to know more please contact Charlotte Wheeler who is our Account Manager for Sweetcorn in the UK. Click on the link to see her introducing the Sweetcorn Trial video from September 2020.

Click here for all our Sweetcorn varieties

Charlotte Wheeler in Sweetcorn trial