Well, then the answer will depend on the type of corn. How tall is it? What is the advice with respect to distance between plants and rows? And how many plants do you need to plant to keep the bio genetic reproduction going without degrading.
Deck corn for example, can be grown in as little as 24 sq. ft. about 4 ft. tall. However that only gives you 9-12 plants, and for me, I’d like to be able to stand up fully inside, so that would be a minimum of 5 ft. 3 inches tall.
I was really hoping somebody would chime in who has experience with growing corn in this type of greenhouse.
There isn’t just one type of corn. The list of possible varieties numbers in the hundreds. Some of them are obscure enough that there isn’t much data on them like height and spacing. I’m working with seed preservation groups. There’s a huge demand for people who can keep corn isolated.
The recommended number of plants needed to prevent inbreeding depression in corn is 2000. For some of these, there aren’t that many seeds, but it’s a rule of thumb. They don’t all need to be in the same greenhouse at the same time.
Height of the greenhouse isn’t much of a concern. Even in a narrow greenhouse, I can change the bend of the pipes to make it 6-7 feet tall. That’s a comfortable working height. Some of the corn varieties might turn out to be too tall for that, but like I said, I might not find that out until I grow them.
My concern is how narrow to make it? At around 10 feet wide, construction gets a lot more complicated. 5 feet wide would be too narrow for me to walk between rows. 8 feet wide would allow for 3-foot blocks and a 2-foot walking path, which would mean I could still reach across to take care of the ones at the edges. But is that too narrow for corn?
If anyone here has experience with growing seed corn indoors, any thoughts on this?