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I don't know myself, Queenweed. It might depend on other factors as well, such as how long of a season do they each have. If one comes to maturity a lot later than the other, distance might not matter since they wouldn't both be pollinating at the same time anyway.
Yes. I am just starting serious gardening and I am trying to become a seed saver at the same time. I am not sure how successful I will be...Thanks for your reply.
Popcorn has serious problems with cross pollination. It has to be completely isolated by either time or distance. If distance we talking about a quarter mile or so. Pollen is windborne.
Thanks. Ouch. I have neighbors 1 1/2 - 2 blocks away who grow sweet corn. Maybe popcorn won't work for me. Too bad I didn't ask before I bought the seed...
Just to be more discouraging, my understanding is that corn suffers from serious inbreeding depression. This means that you really want to save seed from quite a large patch, or your quality/vigor/etc. will go downhill. I don't have the book from which I learned this, but I seem to remember that it was a matter of hundreds of plants. Admittedly, I got this information from precisely one book, so I'm perfectly willing to be told that I'm wrong. :)
If you have only a modest sized garden, you may want to save seed from plants with less of a cross pollination issue, and without the inbreeding depression issue. (The second criterion allows, really, most garden vegetables - I think it's mostly corn and possibly other grains that have the inbreeding depression.)
