corn tassels?

[MossRoad]

Well lets all have a group hug and start talkin tassels then! :dance1:

Tassels are like male sex organs on corn, so to speek. The silks are the females. You don't want the corn to mate with itself since you want to create a hybrid. So you plant two varieties that you want to cross, leave the tassels on the one you want to mate with the females on the other. That's why you see, fore example, 2 rows with tassels and several rows without. It is purely to create hybrid seeds.

For some reason there are many, many seed corn fields around South Bend, Indiana this year. Never seen so many around here in my 50+ years. I saw them picking it yesterday. Kind of interesting considering the "corn snapper" thread that also popped up. They picked it by the ear, not the kernal. Don't know what they did with the "male" rows, but all rows were gone at the end of each run. Here's a link to some neat videos from a corn service company. Enjoy! Videos | NTR Detasseling

 

[MossRoad]

Well, I found an answer to my question about the male rows.... they used to just run them over. But that wastes about 20% of a field. This company has found a way to use that. Pretty good reading.
Purdue Agriculture Connections: Fall 2004

 

[Larro Darro]

I'm one of those old throw backs that likes to save seeds, corn included. When my Uncle James retired and moved back home, he got some seeds from a cousin that we called 8 row night corn. He grew it well away from our bought corn so it wouldn't cross. It was a hard, tight grained white corn, and was bug resistant. He had it milled into grits and corn meal. Nothing you could buy in the store was as good. Towards the end of his life, his mind was slipping and he planted sweet corn beside the 8 row night corn. The seeds were crossed with the sweet corn. It was a couple of years before we knew what he had done, and by then the cousin they came from has died. I've looked in the heirloom seed catalogs and can't find a corn that looks like it.

 

[mikehaugen]

Well, I found an answer to my question about the male rows.... they used to just run them over. But that wastes about 20% of a field. This company has found a way to use that. Pretty good reading.
Purdue Agriculture Connections: Fall 2004

Interesting article... thank you.