All the years I spent in Ohio eating sweet corn and I never knew about the process of detasseling. Detasseling is removing the pollen-producing flowers from the tops of the corn plants and placing them on the ground. The work is sometimes done by hand in the hot summer sun and allows for hybridizing two varieties of corn. Ultimately the process of removing the tassels from the corn creates a genetically stronger hybrid that will be successful in future plantings.
You would not think that snapping the flowery top off of a growing plant would be good for it let alone help successive lines of corn produce a superior crop. But it does. Ask anyone who’s bitten into Ohio sweet corn.
Strange and fascinating how resilient plants can be. You remove something that’s still growing and yet the plant flourishes. Detasseling is an intentional practice aimed at creating robust and reliable corn. You have to take something away in order to get something back.
