Originally Posted by
Scissor Queen
When you rogue milo you cut everything that's too tall, too short or the wrong color and all the weeds. For it to be seed milo it has to be as close to all the same as possible. The stuff on the ears of corn is the silk, not the tassel. The tassel is at the top of the plant.
We detasseled for Cargil and the reason you detassel is to pollinate. We have some companies around here who do experimental fields to try brands that are in development.
We had a machine we could ride for part of the time. It was like a large tractor with two wing decks for 3 people to stand on each side. You leaned over a rail and pulled the tassels. sounds better than walking but it had it's hazzards too. The bar would rub and you got sunburned more when you weren't in the corn. But we started early in the morning. The dew was still on the leaves at 5am and wet corn leaves slice skin real easy. so we started out with layers of clothes and shed them as it got hot. We felt like we were never going to reach the end of the rows. they were miles long not feet long. But we were kids of 14 -16 so we did what we had to do. You would end up with corn rash and sunburns and cuts from the leaves and totally exhausted. But we were earning money! And they paid pretty well. I did it for 3 yrs. We started at 5am and usually quit bout noon to 1pm. We had a lot of fun too while doing it. We had all grown up or around farms so it wasn't anything strange to any of us. We were all classmates and friends.
I did hate the machines for one thing. I had forgotten to leave my rings at home so I put them in my pocket. I also had a chicklet pkg in my pocket and I think it worked out of my pocket with all the leaning over the bar on the machine and I lost both rings in that corn field. My class ring and a small diamond ring my parents got me for graduation. My mom was really mad!