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Radishes & corn smut

Sheila	

I'm real suprised that you can't grow decent root crops in that soil.  It
sounds like a gardeners dream....sandy loam......ahhhh!  I may not have any
answers for you, but what varieties are you growing?  I run a commercial
vegetable farm here in Wisconsin and have experimented with numberous
carrot varieties, beet varieties, and radishes.    The cultivar makes a big
difference for me.   The next biggest factor I've found is water. 
Especially in a sandy soil that is a deep sandy soil, you need plenty of
water.   How much natural rainfall do you get during the growing season and
how much irrigation do you do?

Smut on corn.....its my understanding that smut fungus is mostly worsened
by variety suceptibility.   What varieties are you growing?  I've found the
early season varieties that are short day and su types are most suceptible.
  Once you start growing longer day corn with Se and Sh2 genotypes, I never
see any smut at all.   Smut is also a factor of weather, and if it is real
bad you can use some preventative fungicides, but I've never had it that
bad.   

Hope this helps a little bit, 

Rick
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