Just one plant. If you hand pollinate that is ;-)

I think the generally accepted rule of thumb is a 4x4 block, but I am sure that isn't always enough and sometimes it's more than enough.

I haven't grown corn for years due to pest issues, but when I did I would take the tassles and whack them on the plants to spread the pollen. Always had good pollination this way. I wasn't regular about this either, I just did it once or twice once the corn was ready for it and that was it.

As a home gardener with a small scale patch of corn hand pollination is a very viable and effective option. It also means your patch can be as small as you like.

Having never grown corn I want to be sure I have it right...I could just pull off the tassles and smack the corn plants on the ears?

yup. Actually the ears will form silks which extend out of the corn ears and look like silky hair.

The pollen is on the tassles (at the top the the stalk). Remove one and rub it against the silks and pollination is achieved.

For a small patch the process doesn't take more than a couple minutes and can be repeated a few times a day or so apart (using a new tassle) to be absolutely sure pollination is as complete as possible.

To be sure the tassle has viable pollen just tap it on your hand or a piece of paper and you will see some fall off onto your hand or paper.

If you don't hand polinate the seed packet recommendation of at least four "rows" seems to work, at least here in Maine where any corn I have planted has been expose to wind from any and every direction. With twelve inch spaced corn this would be a whole bed, but I have managed to find corn ("Silverqueen") that requires only 6 inches, which I have had good luck with in the past. (Check out the thread on corn spacing where I initially posted about this.) With four per square a 2x2 foot area would provide 4 "rows" in every direction, and sixteen plants. This is probably what I will do this summer, devoting a quarter of one of my few beds for corn.

Here is a link that might be useful: The corn spacing thread.

Hmmm, I may try that. I can deal with losing two squares. I was actually thinking of trying this odd soda-bottle method I saw on the container gardening forum just for grins, but a "regular" bed of corn would be good too. We'll see. Thanks!