2/11/2020 How is Corn detasseling done

How is Corn Detasseling done?

In April and May the planting is all done for

the fields that are to be detasseled later in July.
These fields are planted in the pattern of one
row of male corn followed by four female rows
and so on through out the field. Normally,
depending on the variety, the male is planted
first then a few days later the female is
planted. This is done to ensure proper timing
of the male shedding pollen at the right time
the female silk is ready.

As time goes by you can see a distinct

difference in the field and it is easy to see
which rows are male, the taller plants, and
which ones are the female plants.

When it gets to about a week before the field is

ready to be detasseled a machine called a cutter
goes through and cuts the top 2 to 5 inches off
all the female plants. This will allow the actual
tassel to grow up above the corn stalk and
above the remaining leaves. This process is
used before a machine called a puller goes
through. The picture at the right shows a cutter
that cuts 6 female rows at a time, the rows with
a "F" are female, the other ones, "M", are
male.

This picture shows the cutter up a bit closer.

Some cutters are able to cut 12 female rows at
a time.

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2/11/2020 How is Corn detasseling done

This is what the field looks like after the cutter

has gone through and a few days have passed.
You can see down the female rows that the
remaining part of the tassel is starting to stick
out. You can also see that the male rows have
been left uncut.

This is a puller going through the field and

pulling out as many of the female tassels as
possible. This puller can do 12 female rows at
a time. The pullers will get anywhere from
40% to 85% of the female tassels, which is not
good enough for a field to pass. For a field to
pass 99.7% of the female tassels must be
removed. After the pullers go through the field
then it is our job as detasselers to finish the job
and pull out the remaining tassels by hand.

If the corn is a short variety this work will be

done on foot, where each worker is given a
female row to follow and pull out the tassels
left behind after the puller. If the corn is a
taller variety then the workers will ride on
these machines, or tractors, which are used to
raise the worker to a higher height so that the
corn plant is not above their head.

These tractors hold 12 workers, one for each

female row, a driver and a crew leader. Each
tractor has 6 buckets that hold two workers
each. The buckets can then be manually raised
or lowered depending on the corn height. All
the workers gear is also kept on the tractor or
tied to it in some fashion.

After the field has been completed and has

99.5% of the tassels removed then it is
considered done. After the pollination process
is done and before the actual corn is harvested,
another tractor, also a type of cutter, will go
through each field and cut down all the male
corn. Only the female corn is harvested, the
male is just used to pollinate the female.

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