Corn Tassel
By Spedona [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons
On a corn plant, the tassel is the top most part of the plant. It is where the pollen is for pollinating other plants. In generations past, the farmers used to save some of their corn to use the next year as seed. But they don’t generally do that any more (not the large farms, anyway) because they found that cross-pollinating hybrid corn plants of different varieties give a greater yield.
Here is an explanation from Holloways Detasseling website
How does pulling the tops or tassels off do that?
Well, we don’t pull all of the tops off. The top of the corn plant (the tassel, remember?) contains the pollen that allows corn plants to reproduce. We pull the tassels from certain rows of corn, these are referred to as the female plants, and the pollen produced by the other rows, referred to as male plants and ones that are not detasseled (which are a different type of corn) cross pollinate with the rows that we have detasseled, the female rows. This produces the special seed corn that farmers want to plant.
My children have been detasseling in the summer. It is a 3 week season with a small window of opportunity to get the tassels off before the pollination begins. Every field is ready to pull the tassels at a different time. They go through the field once and then a day or two later, go through it again in order to pull the tassels that hadn’t fully emerged in the first pull.
This year, Micah (13) is detasseling. They get into the fields between 6 and 6:30 am and walk up and down each row pulling. It is often soaking wet (dew and they work in rain, just not lightning, and sometimes you walk through ankle deep mud), hot, sticky, buggy. The corn plants cut your skin, so you have to wear long sleeves and long pants. You are required to wear protective glasses and hats with mosquito netting and gloves. You might be in the field for a few hours or you might be there for 7-8. If there is work to do every day, you work every day until the fields are done.
It is grueling work, but for 12-15 year olds, to be able to earn ~$600 for 21 days of work, it is a good job. It also does a lot to teach diligence and hard work.
Linking to:
The Better Mom, Multitudes On Monday, Sharing In His Beauty, Monday Musings, Domestically Divine, Time Warp Wife, Gratituesday, Encouraging One Another, Women Living Well, Winsome Wednesday, Raising Homemakers, Wise Woman Builds Her House, Marital Oneness, Big Family Friday, Heart 4 Home, Finding Him Friday, Playdates At The Well, On Your Heart Tuesday, Soli Deo Gloria, Teach Me Tuesdays, Frequent Flier Club, Faithful Parenting Fridays
Micah sounds like a very hard worker – a trait that will serve him well in life!
Thanks, Lisa…I completely agree! Thanks for coming by.
I learned something new! I had no idea what you were talking about with detasseling. I thought maybe you had a vendetta against graduation caps. lol Sounds like very difficult work – weather-wise!
LOL!! Terri, you crack me up!! Yeah it is…in fact, they have today off (holiday) and tomorrow off because the heat index will be over 110!! That is unusual, but we had 2 deaths (not weather related) last summer and the company has really beefed up safety precautions.
Kate, this is definitely a heartwarming story for me. I was also used to a life that wasn’t easy. And if, when I was that age, there were detassling jobs in our place, I would love to be working there, too. I always love to teach hard work and diligence.
Amen, Rina. In our culture today, it is not often taught and employers are finding it harder and harder to come by. So I’m hoping to make my children more employable! Some companies out here actually LOOK for kids who have detasseled at least one summer because it shows a lot about their work ethic.
Ah…the days of corn detasseling! I was not one of the fortunate ones to get to partake in this yearly ritual, but I had a lot of friends who did do it and it can be a really icky cruddy job…but VERY good on teaching a lot of lessons! It will be interesting to see what Micah learns.
Mindy, so far he’s learned that on his day off (holiday) he STILL wakes up around 5 am!! LOL
LOL! Welcome to the working world, Micah!
I’ve never detassled, even though I live in Nebraska. But I was once asked in a job interview if I had. The hiring manager explained that he wanted someone who knew how to work hard. If you’ve detassled corn before, then he knows that you know how to work hard! (I still got the job!)
Jayme, I’ve heard that about employers as well! Thanks for coming by.
Oh this brings back so many memories. Everyone I knew did this – except me! I was so short I couldn’t reach the tops without damaging the corn. I was delegated to helping harvest watermelons – picking them up off the ground and putting them on the truck.
Boy, Phyllis, I wouldn’t have been able to reach at that age either! (not so sure I’d be able to reach TODAY
)
Me either! So, do you want to lift watermelons?
Umm, I think I’ll pass on that one, too!! I have a hard enough time getting them out of the box in the grocery store!! LOL!!
I know what you mean. Guess we should just stick to writing, huh?
Wow … your kids must be super hard workers. Impressive.
Well, Glenda, they have their good moments and their not-so-good, but it’s something we work at.
Kate…you just taught me something new. I didn’t know anything about detasseling. It sounds like hard work and what an experience for Micah. Thank you for sharing at WJIM this week.
Naomi, when we moved here and all the neighbor kids were going detasseling, I had no idea what they were talking about either! But when there are cornfields every other neighborhood, you learn fast. I think of my 8, we’ll end up with 6 having detasseled. And I’m glad for it.