The tops of the corn plants are being removed in a process that Purdue Extension Starke County Ag and Natural Resources Educator Chad Rushing explains is a chance for cross-pollination.
“You can do some crossbreeding between different varieties of corn and then you can create seeds that have the best qualities of each. Instead of it pollinating itself, they’re kind of mechanically doing that process and they’re able to select different genetics. Over time, we have higher quality genetics that lead to higher producing corn,”explained Rushing.
This activity mainly occurs in seed corn.
Corn is detasssled by machines and then people are employed to remove any tassels that may have been missed.
