It will probably work as long as the corn is same type and has 10 days or less maturity diferential. I typically plant Silver Princess ( 75 day), Silver King ( 84 days) and Silver Queen ( 92 day) in six row blocks 150 yards long. Works like a charm. Once I even added two rows of Silver Knight ( 65 day) Did well production wise, but I did not like the size or flavor of Silver Knight that much. Group planting of several cultivars with different maturity dates, really saves labor over staggered plantings.

Corn easily cross-pollinates with other nearby corn if the silks of the varieties are formed at the same time. If that happens, you'll lose the character of the individual corn varieties. That's why farmerdilla suggests planting different corn varieties with maturity dates that differ by at least 10 days -- they won't cross-pollinate with each other if you plant them all at the same time.

If the dates of maturity for the corn varieties you plan to plant are closer than a 10-day difference, say 75 days and 80 days, you can still win if you stagger the plantings so they come to maturity about ten days to 2 weeks apart. Plant the 75 dayer first, wait a week or even longer if you wish, and plant the 80-dayer. That'll give you a nice pause between the two harvests.

But I like planting different varieties at the same time to save repeat-labor, too! I plan to plant Golden Bantam corn, 78 days, and Legend, 65 days, a new hybrid for me, at the same time next week. They won't cross-pollinate each other because of the difference in maturity dates.

As for how to plant them, you DO want the corn to be pollinated by its brothers & sisters of the same variety, so your mention of planting corn in blocks is correct -- corn usually pollinates better in blocks than rows anyway. Then you can plant other corn varieties in blocks close to the first variety as long as they don't mature within that 10-day period that's needed to keep cross-pollination from happening.

As long as you stick with all sugary-enhanced (se)varieties, it's okay for their pollination periods to overlap. It's the supersweets (sh2) that require isolation.

The easiest thing to do is to plant an early se like Sugar Buns with a main season se like Argent at the same time. Technically, they will come in 3 weeks apart, but from a practical point of view you'll have fresh corn for up to a month.

To clarify, the purpose of planting in blocks is so the plants can pollinate each other better, right? And if different varieties mature at the same time it'll change the characteristics of the varieties, right? But is this true only with the supersweet corn, or any corn?

I"m not planting any sh2's, so do I have to be careful about staggering? If I do, must I still plant each variety in its own block of sufficient size? I have a bed system, so that will turn out to be something awkward like 16' (to accommodate 5 rows) x 4'.

Thanks for your help. It's confusing to me!

One thing you must consider. When you plant corn, all with the same mature date, Your later plantings will ketch up with the first. One reason for that is heating degree days and soil temp. A 75 days corn planted 3 or 4 weeks after the first may be maturing at 65 days.

As mentioned several times it is the SH2 that suffers quality loss when cross pollinated with any other type of corn. But even when planting Se's and Su's You want to choose cultivars with similar charcteristics except for maturity date. If you plant a yellow and a white and they cross pollinate, you will get some bicolors. Does not affect the quality if both are quality corns. Once upon a time I interplanted Silver Queen and Golden Queen. Results were identical to planting Bi-Queen. Throw in a red Se like Ruby Queen and it gets interesting looking but still delicious.

anney,
I raised Legend once...just once. Mine grew very nice ears, but.....it was so large grained and crunchy that we didn't care for it. Maybe you will love it.