Detassling corn

Craig2

Member
Noticed some corn had been detassled near me. Never done this as a kid. Am I correct that this is for raising seed corn? At what stage does the top get cut off and what does it do to the maturity of the ear?
 
In a nutshell, yes, for hybred seed.
Silk on the ear is female part of the plant, tassel is the male part.
Depending on size of planter, in the old days of 4 row equip, varieties with different desirable traits used seeds of female traits in 3 rows, male traits in 1. Thus when planting back & forth* across the field it came out 6 & 2.
At the proper time, the tassels on the 6 female rows were pulled by hand or cut by machine, leaving the 2 rows with wanted male traits. Only the 6 rows of female plants are harvested for seed, the 2 male rows are left as junk, to be taken off later so they don't come back next year as weeds.

* that's really bass ackwards, should be forth & back.

Willie
 
Need to get rid of the tassels after they are all out, but before
they have any chance to throw pollen.

Hybrid corn means crossing 2 types of corn - both typically
pretty poor producers - but their children are really really high
yield era. So you got to have the female only plants, exposed
to the pollen from the males, and use that seed for a high
yielding crop of corn.

The children one harvests from this seed corn have many
random traits so do not make good seed for future plantings.
You need a clear male, and clear female set of plants, take the
tassels off the females, and harvest only the females for seed.

Paul
 

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