My USDA obtained flour corn grex has nitrogen fixing individuals I’m working on making more dominant in the population, and it occurred to me that this would be beneficial to introduce into my sweet corn grex as well. I’m considering just planting everything together, to separate out at a later date when I’m satisfied with the expression of these arial roots. Does anyone have any advice or relevant experience separating sweet corn from a population to grow separately? If I’m not mistaken, the expresion of the sweet kernel is homozygous recessive? I don’t really have a problem with it lingering in my flour corn so I’m not concerned about that.
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If I’m remembering correctly, sweet corn kernels crinkle up and flour corn kernels stay smooth and rounded, and the seed coatings actually show the phenotype of the seed (unlike most species!). So in theory, that should make it easier than with most species to separate the right seeds into the right landraces later.
Someone who’s more of a corn expert than I am, can you let me know if I’m remembering correctly?
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I didn’t know that flour corn kernels could look like sweet corn kernels if they’re dried a bit immature. That’s neat to know! 
I’ve heard flour corn kernels can taste like sweet corn if they’re harvested immature at just the right stage. Is that the stage?
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Some minor traits exist that make sweet corn better tasting and more tender. If you mix in flour corn, those minor traits might cause the mouth feel to go down a bit. No problem if you taste each cob before saving seeds.
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I haven’t tried with popcorn but I’ve tried flint, flour, and dent in the milk stage and all can be pretty sweet. Some more than others I’ve noticed. When I used to grow Painted Mountain I would eat half as a “green corn” as many indigenous groups would call it. I currently live a couple hours from mesquakee land and they preserve a lot of their flint corn in this stage by removing from the cob and drying.
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Ha ha ha ha! Did your grandfather not get as much flour corn to harvest after you discovered that? 
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Corn seeds become viable about a week before most people would pick it for the fresh-eating stage. I pick sweet corn for seed about 2-3 weeks after the fresh-eating stage. I taste it at that stage. Even though the best-by date passed weeks ago, it still gives me a good sense of how the cobs would have tasted earlier in their life-cycle. They exhibit a lot of diversity in flavor and texture even weeks after optimal eating date.
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I don’t think I put a serious dent in the harvest, maybe he didn’t see it that way as I did eat my fill on more than one occasion. I never knew why, a day or two later it was gooey and chewy and didn’t taste as good anymore. I also discovered that if you yank the tassel out of a corn stalk just right you get a four- or five-inch section from inside the whirl that is yellow or white, it is very juicy and sweet. I couldn’t reach them or sometimes even the ears without bending the stalk and sometimes they broke. I don’t think he liked seeing that, but his reaction seemed mostly just for show.
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How could you tell the flour corn ears were ready to be enjoyed as sweet corn? Were there any telltale signs to watch for?
I’m curious because of course I want to try this myself now.
I’m planning to grow a popcorn landrace. I think I read somewhere (likely on this forum) that popcorn can double as a good grain corn. If it would do triple duty by working as a sweet corn when harvested at just the right stage, that would be really neat! 
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The same tells as sweetcorn usually, but like mark mentioned it usually only lasts a couple days for flourcorn. I’ll go out everyday when I notice the silks start to dry out, and press the kernel with my fingernail to see if it’s in the milk stage.
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