Talk:Detasseling

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[edit] I detassel

I just started detasseling today, this will be my 2nd year doing it, I could give information about how it's done, if someone else wanted to exspand on this section. Here were I detassel, we start out with about 80 people and end up with about 60 three days in. Most of the time 3 people are assigned 2 rows and we rotate with the personal who finds the corn in front of them has been detasseled moved up 20-40 steps infront of their groups slowest of the 2 other guys.

As far as the owners at my detasseling place have seen it take 1st year people about 1 hour to do 1/2 mile, 50 mins for 2nd year, and 45 mins for 3rd year people. That with a group of 20 people who do there own row and only help others once their row is done.

Most people quite detasseling because the pollen gets in there hands, wrists, and neck. People say that you show take a hot shower when you get home vs. a cold one, so your pours open up and let out the pollen and dirt.

Where I work every 5th row is one that isn't detasseled and is different from the rest. (some are bright green as others are taller) People at my place begin at age 16 (beginners ~40), 17(2nd year ~20), 18(3rd year ~10), 19-23(4th year ~2), 24-40(part-time workers 1), 40+(owners 2)

you can exspand on the article with my information if it helps, I guess some information if for a given place and time... It was my first job (along with most of my friends), I found out about it because my friends dad and uncle own the company. The job isn't sex based, just as many males and females do it. The group I was with had only 2nd year people (13 F, 8M) and a part time male and the uncle/owner.

++Nebraskan Detasseling++ Hi I have been detasseling in a small rural area of nebraska for about 5-6 years, and the way we work is we usually sometimes,well last year, we had about 13 people on my bus then about 20-30 some people on one of our other busses, this year we had a lot of first years so we had about 80-85 people in all and then after about two weeks we get rid of the first years and then the older kids go and work maybe one more week to clean up on some of the fields we did.

The way we do it here in nebraska is we most of the time work in small crews of 5, 4 pullers and 1 checker,(and sometimes on the first day with the first and second years we have to checkers in a crew of 4)we have 4 pullers because most of the fields have 4 rows of female corn (which is the shorter corn rows) and they are surrounded by male corn on each side (the male corn is about a foot taller than the female and sometimes is a little lighter, this corn we do not detassel) so in other words it goes like this, MALE, female,female,female,female, MALE. and then in another area that we work in sometimes when the people in the branch office area of our company need help we go up there and the fields are six, four, six fields. So these go like this: MALE, female,female,female,female, MALE, female,female,female,female,female,female, MALE, female,female,female,female,MALE which is kinda confusing expecially if we are using the personal carriers, which can cover three blocks at a time,(blocks are the distance from male row to male row)we usually have two kids in each basket and the have one checker per block, but when have a 6-4-6 field when have to have one kid on we can only have 10 kids on a machine, which can hold 12 kids, we have to have one kid on the far outside basket cause there is only one row.

the rates of the company i work for is for most detasselers is minimum wage,$5.15 an hour, then some of hte older people get a small raise, which mostly shows up on the bonus check at the end of the year, then some of the supervisors which are usually the bus drivers who are also usually the head supervisors for the crews, and some of them are just contracted to drive the bus, the some of the older kids are assistant supervisors, and some of them like the head supervisors get salary pay, and some of them get a high hourly bonus. and as for the mechanized detasselers, they make our job alot easier yet makes our job a living H#LL, these machines have several wheels on it and are set up like the personal carriers, they can cover three blocks at a time. Now if you ask a detassler about these they might cuss out the machine stuff like that, but in reality if we didnt have the machines, we would have first pull throughout the entire field(first pull is a term we use for whenyou get to a spot that the machine like got off and coulnt reach the tassel so there might be like 2-100 or so on, when usually there are like 1-7 tassels every 10-15 steps) so yea those machines help us alot yet they arent that effective

~derek~