Growing Corn and Saving Seed
Silks on Bi-color Sweet Corn
If you want to start growing corn by planting heirloom varieties and save the seed from year to year, the biggest challenge is preventing cross pollination from other corns. We generally plant 3 varieties of corn in our garden, 2 of them heirloom, and the garden simply is not big enough to separate the varieties sufficiently.
I have found, however, that this is not a challenge if I choose my varieties and planting times carefully. We plant heirloom Early Sunglow sweet corn, which is a 55 day corn, my heirloom dent (flour) corn, and a hybrid sweet bi-color corn all together and at the same time.
3 varieties in one corn patch
If you look carefully at the above photo, the corn in the foreground is the Early Sunglow. It has already tasseled and pollinated itself. In the background is the bi-color sweet corn and it is tasseling and pollinating now. On the right you can see the dent corn and it is just beginning to tassel.
Dent corn beginning to tassel
In this way, we “protect” our varieties from cross pollination and can save the seed.
Dent corn seed from 2011
Fortunately, the field corn across the road is not tasseling yet, so we should be safe this year. Next year they will plant soybeans there, so next year should be another good year for saving seed corn.
Careful planning, and watching out for neighborhood “invaders” is all it takes.
Timing is an easy way to prevent cross pollination, but one needs to remember that corn pollen can travel a great distance. 1000 to 1200 feet from other corn that is shedding pollen would be a reasonable figure. IF GMO contamination is a concern, trusting to timing alone would not be a good idea.
Bagging the shoots and tassels is a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort if you want to insure the variety is going to stay true. And if the seed is dried and kept in a freezer, a few dozen ears every 2 or 3 years will work quite well.
Comment by Doug T. — September 2, 2012 @ 4:45 pm
Bagging the shoots and tassels? Just exactly how do you do that? Would that not interfere with pollination?
Comment by yolanda_breidenbaugh — October 8, 2012 @ 1:02 pm