[Kleftiwallah]

Good afternoon everyone,    I was gurgling about sideshoots on sweetcorn, some say prune, some say leave...
I got to reading about de-tasseling and it appears field workers are employed just to do this.  I thought the tassles were essential for kernal polination.

What's what?   Cheers,   Tony.

[snowdrops]

I’ve never heard of either practices but I wonder if de tasselling might be for the mini corn you buy for stir fry’s as I know that isn’t /shouldn’t be pollinated ?

[mumofstig]

Apparently they do it when they are trying to produce hybrid (F1?) seed corn, most definitely not required for corn to eat!

Detasseling corn is removing the immature pollen-producing bodies, the tassel, from the tops of corn (maize) plants and placing them on the ground. It is a form of pollination control,[1] employed to cross-breed, or hybridize, two varieties of corn.
Fields of corn that will be detasseled are planted with two varieties of corn. Every corn plant has both male and female parts,[2] so if both varieties of corn were left intact, some of the resulting seeds would have non-hybrid parents. Removing the tassels from all the plants of one variety leaves the grain that is growing on those plants to be fertilized by the tassels of the other, resulting in a hybrid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detasseling

Makes sense now, doesn't it 

[Plot 1 Problems]

Thanks MoS, everyday is a schoolday!

[Kleftiwallah]

But why do they specify "and placing them on the ground"?  still stumped ish on this point.

Cheers,  Tony.

[Yorkie]

Saves carrying them to the compost heap? 

[mumofstig]

But why do they specify "and placing them on the ground"?  still stumped ish on this point.

Cheers,  Tony.

so they can get ploughed in after seed is harvested? Less labour (cost) just to drop them on the ground!