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Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling
- From: Janet Bachmann <janetb AT ncat.org>
- To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling
- Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 07:53:25 -0500
Willie is right about the reason for detasseling corn. It is done to
produce hybrid seed. I grew up in Iowa and one of my first jobs was
detassseling. (I think I was 14 and barely 5 feet tall, the minimum
height for the work.) Anyway, corn is wind pollinated. The pollen
falls from the tassel to land on silks of the same or other corn plants
within a mile or so. Hybrid corn is the result of carefully controlled
cross pollination of two "inbred" lines. One line provides the pollen,
which falls on the silks of the secong inbred line. The second inbred
line is detasseled so that its pollen will not fall on the silks. The
last time I went detasseling (1982), companies planted 2 rows for
pollen shedding to 4 rows to be detasseled and receive pollen from the
other 2 rows. The detassling job consisted of walking down the row and
pulling out the tassel (not the leaves) by hand. The fields were large
and the rows probably 1/2 mile long. There are other ways to manage
corn pollination, but I won't get into them here. This is probably
already more than you wanted. Janet Bachmann Fayetteville, AR also- does anyone know what the point of de-tasseling corn is? i tried to find some info yesterday and i am still "cornfused". my niece said when she was in nebraska one summer, all the teenagers there had summer jobs de-tasseling corn. now i guess a lot of it is done by machine. we grow lots of field corn and sweet corn here and i had never heard of it. thanks, laurenI'm no corn expert, but..... It is probably to control pollenation (pollination? my spell checker likes neither) for seed production. Maybe for hybrid varieties. -- Janet Bachmann Agriculture Specialist National Center for Appropriate Technology P.O. Box 3657 Fayetteville, AR 72702 (479)442-9824 (479)442-9842 fax janetb AT ncat.org www.attra.ncat.org |
-
[Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling,
lauren cathcart, 04/19/2005
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Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling,
Willie McKemie, 04/19/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling, The Radfords, 04/19/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling, Janet Bachmann, 04/20/2005
- Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling, robert schuler, 04/19/2005
-
Re: [Market-farming] Anyone in Phoenix?/de-tasseling,
Willie McKemie, 04/19/2005
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