Yes, that will certainly happen. But the ag experts say that the pollen is relatively heavy and doesn't blow far, with wind-pollination of corn dropping to practically nothing at 660 feet of distance. If that sweet corn farmer had a square block of 500 acres of sweet corn, that would be about 4575 feet on a side. If the field corn had been planted directly alongside, the cross-pollination shouldn't have extended (theoretically) any farther than 1000 feet into the sweet corn. Had he wanted to, the sweet corn farmer could have harvested the 300 acres on the far side of his plot from the field corn and had a good crop. But in cases like that, the farmer probably just files a claim against his Federal crop insurance and saved harvest costs and just cashed the check.

For the home gardener, it's nice to have some idea what your neighbors are doing. Corn is wind-pollinated, many more are insect-pollinated.

One way to get around it is, if you have a corn farmer close upwind is to stop in and ask him if he is planting early, mid-season or late corn, and ask when he is likely to be planting. Then choose a sweet corn variety that ISN'T the same 'season' as his. There is only a 10-day or so window of pollination for corn. If your farmer neighbor is planting mid-season corn, you could plant early corn a week earlier or late corn a week later, and miss the cross-pollination from his corn.

In fact, if you plant three varieties of corn in your yard and are careful to choose an early, mid- and late variety, all you have to do is sow them in order, 7-10 days apart, and you won't have any cross-pollination at all.

Another method (I don't know how effective) is to sow plants with sticky leaves between the farmer's crop and yours. Sunflowers are one I have heard mentioned. The blowing corn pollen catches on the sticky sunflower plants (not affecting them), acting like a sort of filter.

Sue