People really like the corn grown on the campus of California State University at Fresno. So much so that many local residents stand in line for hours to buy it.
According to an article by Diana Marcum in the Los Angeles Times:
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when Fresno State sweet corn went from best-kept secret to Central California icon.
The first day the corn was picked, people lined up at 6 a.m. outside the university’s farm store, the same as they have for five years. This season, however, a line stretching all the way to the parking lot was there at dawn the next day. And the day after that. “It took me five times coming to get my first corn this year,” said Rosemary Rendon, 76. “But I kept coming because I’m stubborn and because this corn is really something else.”
Customers apparently come from hundreds of miles around for this corn, which is grown by the agricultural laboratory at Cal State Fresno. It’s unclear why the corn is in such demand but, according to the article, in the last few years the corn may have improved because “agricultural students have reduced tilling and fine-tuned applications of water and nitrogen.”
Customers can buy three ears of the corn for $1. Fresno State expects to sell 1 million ears this season.
