The Sex Life of Corn

One of the things I learned this summer was about the sex life of corn. Eric and Guinnie's farm is surrounded by seed corn fields. They are farmed by different people, but most of the corn goes to Monsanto for seed. I learned about corn de tasseling on ideabox.debatenation.com/

Corn detasseling is the crucial last step in producing hybrid corn seed. It involves removing the pollen-producing top part of the plant, the tassel, so the corn can't pollinate itself. Instead, pollen from another variety of corn grown in the same field is carried by the wind, pollinating the detasseled corn. The result is corn that bears the genetic characteristics of both varieties and can produce healthier crops with higher yields. Despite technological advances in agriculture, detasseling is still a task that for the most part is done by hand.The detasseling season lasts only about 20 days beginning in mid-July and, because it's usually minimum-wage work, it doesn't attract many migrant workers. But teenagers are drawn to the fast cash they can make, sometimes $4,000 a season. About 100,000 teenagers in the U.S. do this work each summer, according to estimates by seed companies and detasseling contractors.

Learn more at http://www.teamcorn.com/aboutdetasseling.shtml