What kind of corn do you prefer Grainne Dhu? Sweet corn? I prefer the sweet, but I love it all. So, the girls were abducted on Friday July 13, 2012 and that means detasseling was more than likely full progress?
If you can see the picture, can you tell me:
1. If the fields on the right and left are cornfields?
2. When do cornfields typically get prepared (tilled) for next year's crop?
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ETA: Link for picture:
http://kwwl.images.worldnow.com/images/6693118_G.jpg
Well, this demonstrates why I should not rely on MY memory! Yes, detasseling would have been in full gear in the middle of July.
I love sweet corn! I like the supersweet varieties charcoal grilled. For boiling, I prefer the older varieties that you have to grow at home and pick when the kettle is at the boil--they don't hold their sweetness for long but they have more corn flavour than the supersweet varieties. So you pick, then run for the kitchen as you husk and de-silk the ears. Now I'm jonesing for summer.
1) The field on the right hand side of the frame was in corn. I can't really tell about the left side of the frame, too much snow and too far away. That doesn't mean they'd be planted in corn the next year or had been the previous year. Most farmers follow a 2 or 3 to 1 rotation of corn to soybeans. Corn is more drought tolerant, soybeans more wet tolerant, so some farmers (like the guy who farms the field my house is in the middle of) don't go with a set rotation, they alternate depending on what they think the weather will be like the following summer. MY neighbour is, I swear, a weather witch. He makes his final decision in November and in the 11 summers since I moved here, his prediction has always been correct.
2) Corn fields are harvested and the stubble is deliberately left in place to discourage wind erosion. When I was a teen, it was considered best practice to have "clean" fields after harvesting and before winter by plowing the stubble under. Farmers who didn't get around to fall plowing before the ground froze were looked down on as being shiftless and bound to have more problems with plant diseases the following year. It was common for the snow banks along the roads out in the country to be black with blowing top soil. Finally, people woke up and started taking measures against wind erosion by leaving tall stubble (2 feet or so) in place until spring plowing.
If a farmer is planning to put in corn the following year, the first step is after harvest the previous year before the ground freezes. They run a slit plow over the field so that anhydrous ammonia can be injected into the ground, where time and bacterial action will turn it into nitrogen for next summer's corn crop. The slit plow leaves a narrow slit that you can't see unless you walk right up to the field.
In the spring, right before planting (ideally the day or two before planting) the stubble is turned under during plowing. Then the planter goes through and delivers seed and more fertiliser to the field. So plowing takes place when soil temps at the surface are above 55 F/13 C and the land is, ideally, dry enough not to compact too much but lots of subsoil moisture to nourish the seeds.
While corn fields may seem relatively smooth when you zip by them at 65 mph, when you walk them it is a real chore because the difference between the ridges and furrows is 7 to 9 inches (18 to 22 cm). In the summer, the growing corn plants hold the moisture down so under the leaves, it is really, really humid, even in drought years. The leaves look smooth but have thin, tough edges and can cut you just like a paper cut.
Not all corn is detasseled, only seed corn (which is a small percentage of the acres of corn planted each year). To get hybrid corn, each field is planted with two varieties of corn. The aim is for the female parts (ears) of corn plants of one type to be fertilised by the pollen of the other type of corn in the field. So the variety of corn that will provide the females has their tassels pulled so that they can't pollinate their own variety. Seed corn contracts require that seed corn fields be 99.5% clean of tassels from the variety that is producing the ears. So first they send the cutter through, to cut the tops off the plants just before the tassels emerge because the detasseling machines don't deal well with plants of varying heights. And then the detasseling crew is sent in to clean up the field. They detassel the plants that the machine missed and they also make sure that none of the tassels that were thrown out of the machine landed on the corn plants (which would defeat the whole purpose).
For really tall varieties, the detasselers ride in a detasseler carrier, which has room for 8 to 12 detasselers, depending on the make and model. For the shorter varieties, the detasselers walk the fields.
Typically, a detasseling contractor has several contracts, enough for as many crews as they have to manage. They only go in the fields to do spot checks and then to do the final check with the field supervisor but that doesn't mean they goof off the rest of the time. A contractor who has 4 crews to supervise typically spends all day doing a circuit from crew to crew, spot checking work and making sure everything is running smoothly and efficiently.
It used to be the traditional summer job for teens but these days, relatively few teens will take it. The people in the fields are generally Latino. Detasseling is hard, hard physical labour, even if you are riding a carrier. Before the spread of Round-up ready soybeans, the only job harder for a teen was walking soybeans. You didn't know if your arms were just going to fall off or if you were going to cut them off to stop the pain. There are still farmers who do not use Round-up ready soybeans (organic farmers, mostly) and I haven't seen any light complected teens walking beans in many, many years.
