By MARK POWELL

02/01 First, the truth.
Baby corn is not harvested from dwarf corn plants.
Instead baby corn is exactly what the name implies, immature ears harvested from regular-sized corn plants.
According to Carol Miles of Washington State University, marketing baby corn is a niche for some growers in her region of the country.
Speaking at the annual convention of the Vegetable Growers Association of New Jersey in Atlantic City last month, Miles told producers that Asian restaurants love local, fresh baby corn.
“And our producers are marketing them through farmers markets,” Miles said.
Washington State Extension has created a series of recipe cards for the baby corn to help market the product at farmers markets. “We worked with chefs to create these recipes, they’re simple, basic recipes,” she said. Like, for example, “Miniture Soup,” a combination “young children are bound to love
... where everything is just their size!.”
Miles said Puget Sound farmers - marketing under a Puget Sound Fresh label - are producing baby corn which is crisper and much tastier than the canned baby corn with which consumers are more familiar.
Fresh baby corn is sold in the husk at about $1.50 a pound.
The rule of thumb for one producer Miles worked with is a simple one, baby corn must bring at least as much as other sweet corn.
Miles said that the small ears are tender, and if the husks are removed, the corn can become damaged, discolored and dehydrated.
Ears are ideal for baby corn, she said, if they are bite size, or about 2 to 4 inches long. Kernals should be uniform and neatly aligned.
To meet this criteria, the ears should be harvested one to three days after silks become visable.
There are some corn varieties particularly suited to baby corn production.
Miles listed three: GH2283, Bonus and Baby Corn. These varieties tend to have more ears per plant than other sweet corn varieties. Field corn is typically not suitable for baby corn production, she said, because sweet corn ears are easier to break off from the stalk. Miles suggested that farmers plant a trial plot first before getting into the baby corn business.
She offered other tips to Jersey growers:
• Plant seed at a depth of 1 to 2 inches. If baby corn is a primary crop, space rows 36 inches apart and space seed 4 inches apart in the rows. Plant population will be about 44,000 per acre.
If baby corn is a secondary crop, follow sweet corn guidelines.
• Harvest baby corn every two to three days, when the ears are 2 to 4 inches long.
Harvest is by hand and as time and labor intensive as other hand-picked sweet corn.
• As a primary crop, harvest all ears. (A single planting may be harvest nine to 12 times over a period of three to four weeks. Expected yield is 8,500 pounds.) As a secondary crop, harvest the second ear from the top of the plant for baby corn and allow the top ear to mature for sweet corn use.
• In research by Miles, the quality of harvested baby corn ears declined as the harvest season progressed.
Because baby corn is new crop in the United States, Miles suggested a few companies currently marketing baby corn seed varieties.
Among them are: Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Albion, Mass., (207) 437-4357; Osborne Seed Co., Mt. Vernon, Wash., (360) 424-7333; Nichols Garden Nursery, Albany, Ore., (541) 928-9280; Territorial Seed Co., Cottage Grove, Ore., (541) 942-9547; and Gurney’s Seed and Nursery Co., Yankton, S. Dak., (605) 665-1930.
Miles maintains a Website with information about baby sweet corn at http://agsyst.wsu.edu.