13 AUGUST 21-27, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | How Sweet It Is A CORN CROP FIRST PLANTED IN 1978 HAS BECOME A COLORADO FAVORITE. BY GIL ASAKAWA ‘Tis the season...for Olathe sweet corn. That’s the famous strain grown in Colo- rado’s Uncompahgre Valley. The crop is har- vested starting in July and into September, then trucked from Western Slope farms to shops and markets along the Front Range, and increasingly across the country. But it took time for the corn to hit this sweet spot. “A lot of it was trials and tribu- lations,” says Reid Fishering, president of Mountain Quality Farms, who studied in New York City and worked in the fi nance in- dustry before returning to his literal roots to run his family’s farm outside Montrose. “You have to grow it, you have to tweak it, you have to try again. It’s not like suddenly one year, the crop became fully perfect sweet corn.” Although Olathe sweet corn has an iconic reputation, the sweet, crunchy vegetable that gets Coloradans excited every summer is a relatively new phenomenon, a product of careful cross-breeding along with smart marketing and brand-building. Fishering introduces Mike Alhberg, the “patriarch” of the farmers producing sweet corn, who uses some acreage at Fishering’s farm for sweet corn. Alhberg Farms, which was founded in 1946, grows a variety of other staples like regular “fi eld” corn, alfalfa, onions and beans. But when it comes to the sweet stuff, Ahlberg says, “I’m the one left surviving that started planting corn that very fi rst year.” Olathe sweet corn was first planted as a crop in 1978, when the region’s longtime primary crop, the sugar beet, was de- clining in popular- ity. A sweet seed had been developed by a corn geneticist, Da- vid Galinat, and sold through his Olathe- based company, Mesa Maize. This new crop slowly took root in the Uncompahgre Valley, where the summer days are long and hot and the nights cool — perfect for making the corn sweeter without turning into starch. By the mid-1980s, Olathe sweet corn had become a re- gional star. John Har- old, who had been selling sweet corn out of his truck locally, started Tuxedo Corn Company in 1986; in 1987 he trademarked the name “Olathe Sweet” to shout the corn’s fl avor profi le and to embrace its geographic roots. That move turned Olathe sweet corn into a now-recognizable brand. In 1990, the town of Olathe began celebrat- ing its famous export with an annual Sweet Corn Festival; it has since moved to the nearby, larger city of Montrose, where it will mark its 35th year on August 23 with live music, vendors and, of course, lots of sweet sweet corn, offered every way imaginable. Kroger, the supermar- ket chain that owns the King Soopers stores along Colorado’s Front Range, is a sponsor; not surprisingly, so is Tuxedo Corn Company. Bugging out Just as sweet corn was catching on, the bug bit. Moths lay eggs in the silk that sticks out from atop ears of corn, as well as on other vegetables and fruits; when the larvae hatch as earworms, they eat part of the tops of the corn. That’s why some ears of corn that make it to the store might be missing kernels in the top few rows. But earworms were not a signifi cant problem until climate change brought milder winters to the region, and there was no killing cold to eliminate the moths. In 2023, the worst year for earworms, up to 40 percent of Colorado’s sweet corn crop was discarded. Most of the damaged ears were culled from those being boxed and shipped, because the untouched corn could still be used for freezing or canning, with the affected part discarded or sold at a discount as livestock feed. Farmers have employed various tactics to fi ght earworms. Spider venom, a natural pesticide, has been used, though Fishering says the earworm situation this season hasn’t been bad enough to call for that. Farmers are more optimistic about using another bug, anyway. Colorado’s Biocontrol Offi ce at the eighty-year-old Palisade In- sectary is experimenting with sending tiny wasps over acreage holding sweet corn to seek out and lay their eggs in the earworm eggs, thus preventing the caterpillars from hatching. The experiment is in its early stages, but Dan Bean, Insectary program manager, says that millions of the wasps have been let loose in a test on a plot of Tuxedo’s corn. “A problem with the corn earworm issue is the earworms are now resistant to most pesticides,” he notes. “We’re working on biological controls. And biological con- trols are living organisms that attack their natural enemies.” These efforts to fi ght the worms are natu- ral — the key word is “biological” — solutions that do not involve chemical pesticides or insecticides. They are organic agents, and while they’re not cheap, responsible farm- ers are focusing on them to battle the bugs. “We feel like we can beat it,” Fishering says. “I don’t know if that’s a fool’s errand. Going back to when my parents were fi rst doing this, we didn’t have the issues that we’re seeing today in terms of the population. I think everyone thinks, what are the root causes? Is it climate change, or is it because some moth made it over on some sort of container ship, made it to L.A. or someplace, and then proliferated? I guess it reproduced with a moth that was there, and then you get this gene, and that’s that.” But that’s not the end of the battle. “We’re losing between 10 to 30 percent of our corn, we’re losing yield, and our profi t margins are so tight already,” Fishering points out. Fishering’s father began farming after going to a kibbutz in Israel. “He fell in love with irrigated farming, so when he got back to the states he enrolled in Colorado State for an agronomy degree,” he says. At fi rst, the elder Fishering worked for Holly Sugar in Montana, but then he and his wife settled in Montrose because they liked the warmer climate. “My mom and dad worked for an ag nonprofi t for the regional economic de- velopment agency to see what alternatives the farming community could attempt to replace the wheat CAFE continued on page 14 FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS As sweet corn is harvested in the background, an ear taken off a stalk shows a beautiful, ready-to-eat treat. Reid Fishering, president of Mountain Quality Farms, checks for any ears of corn that need to be culled and sent as animal feed. GIL ASAKAWA GIL ASAKAWA
