My first job was detasseling corn. I'm an Iowa farm girl and lots of kids detassle. For those who don't know what that is....the corn stalks grow a tassel on top and you have to pull it off so that certain corn plants fertilize the ears of corn to form the kernals. The seed corn companies need to have the tassels removed to make hybred corn seed for next year. Lots of kids detassel in the summer. When I did it, we had to walk the rows with our arms above our heads pulling out the tassels. I had a real challenge because I am only 5 foot tall. Some corn is 6 feet or more. Now there are machines that you can sit on a ride while you are pulling them out.
My detasseling crew was a good one. We also "rougued" before detasseling started. That is when you use long knives shapped like hooks and cut out the abnormal corn stalks. The stalks were taller than the rest or had something wrong with them and needed to be cut out of the field.