It’s 5:30 a.m. and the sun hasn’t risen, but teenagers are already up and busy picking tassels in the mile-long cornfield alongside spiders, beetles and snakes. This was a typical day in July for thirteen Yutan students who detasseled for the Glock detasseling program this summer.
Detasseling is a job in agriculture that is typically performed by junior and high school students to prevent self-pollination and control which corn pollinates.
“Detasseling is the process of picking the tallest point on the corn, or otherwise known as the tassel,” eighth-grader Jackson Benjamin said.
The early mornings were a necessity to avoid the harsh afternoon weather.
“Detasseling was in the early morning to avoid the heat and discomfort that would happen later in the day,” eighth-grader Alec Wacker said.
The length of the workday was also determined by the daily weather, with many days stretching for eight hours and other days ending early.
“I experienced rainy, humid and hot days,” Benjamin said. ”Long days when the corn was really wet.”
Because detasseling occurs during the summer, the weather can play a factor, especially when there is a lot of rain, as was the case this past summer.
“The mud conditions were horrible,” Wacker said. “We had to walk in the shin-deep mud, making it very hard to walk because it would weigh down your body.”
Detasselers wear specific clothes to manage the weather and other issues like cuts from the sharp corn leaves.
“I wore a poncho to protect me from rain, and I wore a long shirt to prevent corn rash,” Benjamin said.
Although detasseling can be hard work, it has a recurring number of 7,000 students participating each year, according to KCUR news station. Each student may have different reasons for participating in detasseling, but they can all agree that money and friends are involved.
“I thought it would be a fun experience with friends,” Benjamin said.
Wacker participated in detasseling to know what it’s like to receive a first paycheck.
“I had never been paid before, so when I got the money, it was great,” Wacker said.
Particularly for junior high students, the paycheck can be significant.
“If it is your first year, you get minimum wage; our pay was $13.50 an hour,” eighth-grader Colton Sake said.
At the end of the summer, though, the things they remember most are not necessarily the pay or the work conditions but the unusual and funny stories of their time in the fields.
“The funniest story was when we threw stalks at each other over the rows and had corn wars,” Sake said.
Benjamin’s favorite story also involved horsing around with friends.
“My favorite story was when one day, Alec and I and these two kids from Elkhorn were picking. One of the kids from Elkhorn fell, and then the other kid started throwing all his tassels at his friend,” Benjamin said. “It was a really funny moment.”
In the end, detasseling leaves students feeling changed after the physical and mental exertion of a good day’s work.
“Because of detasseling, I feel like a lot of things that were hard before are now easier thanks to it,” Wacker said.
