Hungary’s sweet-corn growers face a drier, hotter Pannonian climate where a single 60 mm irrigation allowance must still deliver processor-grade ears of 300 g and ≥ 13.5 °Brix%. A 2022 field trial at Debrecen exposed thirteen commercial sh² hybrids to 60 mm or 120 mm of micro-sprinkler water under the region’s worst spring–summer drought since 1950 and tracked NDVI, SPAD, LAI, ear morphology, grain yield and °Brix. Messenger, Tyson and Royalty kept yields above 14 t ha⁻¹ in both regimes while Cash combined gourmet-level sugars with only modest penalty; canopy NDVI at the 1-m stage and ear diameter scored weeks before harvest served as cheap predictive proxies. Matching cultivar to water budget—Messenger for ≤ 60 mm, Tyson or Royalty for 120 mm, Cash for premium °Brix contracts—lets growers stabilise income, while staying below 70 000 plants ha⁻¹ under deficit and timing the final 30 mm at blister stage safeguards kernel set without lodging.