Abstract: The sugar content of sweet corn can be increased without seriously reducing the water soluble polysaccharide (WSP) by using the shrunken.sub.2 (sh.sub.2) gene. Combining a sweet corn which is a homozygous sugary.sub.1 (su.sub.1) inbred with a sweet corn (homozygous su.sub.1 sh.sub.2) inbred will result in heterozygous hybrid that has approximately 50% more sucrose, 33% more total sugars and a WSP (water soluble polysaccharide) level near that of sweet corn) homozygous su.sub.1). The high WSP and sucrose levels are particularly desirable in food processing industries such as the canning and freezing industries.