Two of our three daughters, and my wife as a high schooler, engaged in the infamous corn country summer employment that thousands of teenagers have participated here in the Midwest: Detasseling.

The corn is tasseling, the silk on the ear is growing, pollination is near, and my thoughts turn back to the worst job I ever had: detasseling. In the summer of 1959, at the tender age of 12, I along ...

Prior to the kids going into the fields, detasseling machines remove approximately 70 percent of the tassels. The kids clean up what the machines were unable to get. In detasseling, timing is ...

David Powell spent the last 13 July's walking through corn fields. He's one of about 18 people detasseling corn at a Geneseo research field for Wyffels Hybrids. His average of about 17,000 steps a day ...

An employee of Ailes Detasseling walks through a seed corn field near Utica, Neb., in 2024. Detasseling is seen as a rite of passage for Midwest teenagers, but in recent years, more of the detasseling ...

For decades, corn detasseling was a customary summer job for teenagers in Nebraska and the rest of the Corn Belt. In recent years, however, agriculture companies are relying more on migrant labor to ...

Candice Fuson sails between rows of 6-foot corn plants, not pausing to wipe the mix of sweat and morning dew that drenches her face, long-sleeved windbreaker and gloved hands.The 15-year-old's ...

DEWEY, Ill. (AP) -- For migrant workers and teens on summer break, mid-July in central Illinois means one thing: corn detasseling. For a few weeks every summer, crews of workers trudge through wet and ...

There were fewer local workers detasseling seed corn in Iowa in 2025 than in previous years as the number of temporary migrant laborers with H-2A visas doing the jobs increased, according to data ...

If I say the words corn detasseling, you probably do not think glamorous job - and you'd be right. It is hot. It is dirty. It is also a summer job that pays well for many teenagers in the Midwest.