The annual Midwestern tradition of corn detasseling has officially begun, as thousands of junior high and high school students earn money by yanking tassels from corn stalks. Here Photo caption below You may have seen them getting on buses in the early morning and off in the late afternoon, dressed in hats and scarves to protect them from the sun, plastic bags to keep off the dew, and denim pants, long sleeves and work gloves to protect their skin from razor-like corn leaves. They spend up to three weeks of their summer getting dirty and sweaty in the hot Indiana sun to ensure the production of hybrid seed corn by, in effect, castrating corn plants. But Purdue agronomist Bob Nielsen notes that a corn plant left to grow on its own will pollinate itself. He hires detasselers because the only way for a detasseled plant to be pollinated is by another corn plant that has a tassel.
Timing is important.
Detassel too early and there is a risk of decreasing the yield of seed corn. But wait too long and the corn plant will have started to pollinate itself, resulting in the corn's natural seed instead of the hybrid seed. To remove the tassel, the kids grab the tassel at the top of the plant, yank it off, then throw it on the ground. They can walk corn rows two or three times before they completely clear a field. According to Oetting's Detasseling, a detasseling company, in an average summer about 100,000 people, mostly students ages 13 and up, join in this Midwestern tradition.