Ross Reid wrote:

I have to disagree with your disagreement ;-).
Breaking a portion off a cob will leave the exposed end of the cob
portion left on the stalk open to all sorts of molds and/or bacterial
infection...........
...............At least, if Loki attempts saving his/her own corn seed,
it will be an interesting learning experience.

Ross

I have to disagree with your disagreeing with my disagreement...

Just kidding. ;-)

Let me just tell my experiences on this subject.

1. Some years, including last year, I had some birds get into my
corn. Some of the ears were stripped open and 90% of the corn was
eaten. Last year it was some Indian ornamental corn that peeked into
early. I got the birds going and they learned to open the other
ears on their own. I've had them get into sweet corn in other years.
I don't pick the ears that are mostly eaten. At the end of the
season, even though the cobs are destroyed and do have some mold on
them, the seeds at the stem end that the birds didn't reach, matured
just fine. I still think if Loki were to do as I suggested, taking
care to close the husks back up, there would be plenty of good seed.

2. Four years ago, I left a few ears of Seneca Horizon corn (yes,
it's a hybrid) unpicked. It is my early variety of corn and we moved
on to the better, later varieties.
Purely for the fun of it, I saved the seeds. I planted it to see
what I would get. To my surprise, it was fine. Little if any
difference from the original seed. I planted the same batch of seed
the next two years as well. Last year was the 3rd year, the seed was
getting old and produced too many runts. Time to buy some new seed,
since I didn't bother to save more seed (partly because I started
growing that Indian corn next to it).

3. I fully agree with your last part, above.

Steve