By Jami Badershall,Staff Writer

While most of us may complain about hot, muggy weather, corn growers in Maine are happy to have it.

“The heat’s not good for people, but it’s awfully good for the corn,” says Mary Briggs, whose family farm, Brigeen Farms in Turner, grows nearly 300 acres of corn to feed their Holstein cows.

She said the corn crop got off to a slow start because of the rain and cool temperatures early on in the growing season.

“Right now we’re doing well,” she said. “We’re a little behind, but we planted a little late and there hasn’t been enough degree days to aid its growth.”

The farm had to replant 30-40 acres of corn because of wet spots this year. “Some of the spots were so very, very wet,” she said. “It’s not uncommon to replant a few wet spots, but this year we had a few more.”

The Briggses harvest their corn as early as September and as late as the first week in October.

“It’s short-season corn because we live in a state where the growing season is short,” Briggs added. “Hopefully we’ll have good weather and not incur a frost in late September or early October. We have to get the corn ahead of the first frost, but you have to wait until the grain has achieved as much maturity as possible.”

Greg Gillespie of the Gillespie Farm in Gray and New Gloucester started picking his sweet corn on Monday. He said when he checked the corn on Thursday and Friday there was little ready to be picked, but “by Monday, it was all ripe” thanks to a hot weekend.

“Corn loves this weather. On those hot, sticky nights, it jumps up 2 to 3 inches overnight,” he said.

Normally, Gillespie would have started picking 4 to 5 days ago, “if May had been normal weather. With all the wet weather we’ve had, it’s been a challenge to get the corn as good as it is.”

Despite being a few days late, Gillespie says this looks to be one of his better years. “It’s marvelous,” he said of the corn.

Gillespie has about 150 acres, on which he also plants strawberries and pumpkins, but “corn is our biggest crop as far as acres,” he said, adding that he plants the 100 acres of corn in stages and just recently finished breaking ground for the last planting.

“If you plant all at once, you can’t get it all picked because it’ll go by in three to four days,” he said. “If we don’t have too much bad weather or frost, we’ll have enough to keep picking until the 15th of October. The corn can take a couple of frosts because its husk protects it. We’ve picked until October 30th before.”

Thanks to the wet weather and late planting, Beverly Hendricks of DeerWood Farm and Gardens in Waterford is almost two weeks behind schedule.

“The corn is usually knee high on the Fourth of July, and it’s knee high now,” she said. “It’s coming up, but everything is slow this year.”

She grows a small amount of strawberry popcorn, a short, red corn that she harvests in September. She grows it mostly for herself and sells some, but her mainstay is day lilies, of which she has about 7,000 varieties. Fortunately for her, “the rain is wonderful for them. They’re a little early this year and they’re just amazing.”