Where 'field work' means stalking the corn

Call them the children of the corn.

For about three weeks each summer, thousands of adolescents wearing ponchos, heavy pants, and work boots wake before dawn and trudge up and down the sweltering cornfields of Midwest farms, yanking the tops off corn stalks.

Their well-timed task: to remove the pollen-bearing tassel from the corn plants designated as "female" - the majority on a given field. Detasseling prevents them from self-pollenating, and allows them instead to be pollenated by a select number of stalks with their tassels left intact, designated as "male."

The process yields the seed that will be used to grow bigger and tastier ears of corn.

Here in Nebraska - where corn plants outnumber people by about 10,000 to 1 - detasselers are revered members of the community. And their annual act of summer labor has become a cherished right of passage.

Detasseling began in the 1940s when geneticists discovered that growing corn hybrids - in which corn variety A is pollenated by variety B - produced healthier crops with larger yields.

Farmers harvesting seed corn now commonly grow four to six rows of the detasseled crop next to a row or two of a pollen-bearing breed.

The pollen is captured by the silk on each individual cob of corn on the detasseled stalks.

Machines similar to combines chop off the majority of tassels. But farmers still require a little human help to get rid of the overlooked pollen. (A few unwanted tassels could, theoretically, pollenate a full acre of crop.)

Enter the adolescent workers. They normally ranging in age from 12 to 16, and have traditionally taken to the work because no one else will. Minimum age requirements vary from 10 in South Dakota to 14 in Iowa.

But for many rural 12- and 13-year-olds, detasseling offers the best wage available.

Larry Oetting, who runs the largest detasseling operation in the country here, detasseled as a child in Missouri. He began his business in 1978 after his two sons began trolling the fields as children.

"It is certainly a tradition out here, and for anyone who lives in a farming community," says Oetting. "Kids aren't getting in trouble. It's good honest work."

Fourteen-year-old Josh Sommer came to Seward from Republic, Mo., because he couldn't find a job back home. Last year, Josh earned $800 detasseling. He spent it on two rifles and camping and fishing gear.

Sommer says he enjoys the independence of working and living away from home - including buying his own groceries. But the 12 days of work so far this summer have been grueling.

"All the corn fields are the same," says Josh. "It's just one big blur. Every day I want to stop, but I don't."

Like most of his coworkers, Josh comes to the fields well prepared. His supplies include a cooler, two jugs of water, crackers, chips, Granola bars, Power Ade mix, a Swiss Army knife, needle and thread, and baby wipes for his hands. (Some detasslers wear gloves.)

Also in tow: a dog-eared copy of "How To Stay Alive In The Woods."

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