If you are no longer young, you may be able to remember when the only true sweet corn on the cob was that picked the same day, meaning corn on the cob in supermarkets wasn't sweet. We'd look for roadside stands selling corn, and sometimes be lucky. And most ears of corn had a worm in the top we'd cut off before cooking.
Today, supermarket corn is often sweet and worm-free, and the credit belongs to a federal agency it's likely you've never heard of - the Agricultural Research Service, of USDA. Their scientists (and university plant geneticists working on grants they provided) bred corn that stays sweet for days after picking, and it is much more often insect free too.
As a result, here in WY - over a mile high, with a too-short growing season - we can buy good sweet corn for several summer months in the supermarket. A favorite summer meal is a charbroiled boneless rib eye with an ear of corn, we'll eat that a lot all summer long.
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I spent two years with ARS on loan from the university back in the late-ish 1970s. Not for my ag. knowledge which was minimal, but for my work in management development.
The task was turning ag. scientists into managers of ag. science, while not interfering too much with their current assignment doing ag. science. It was a good experience, and we won some kudos for our program.
