Sex in a Corn Field?

Lots of people get lost in a big forest, not being able to see the forest for the trees. But did you ever think about getting lost in a corn field, where the seven foot tall corn stalks were the equivalent of trees?Even wilder, did you ever consider the subject of sex in a cornfield - either by Homo Sapiens, or by the corn itself?One of my temporary jobs in my younger college youth days was to run a corn detasseling crew in the hybrid corn seed fields in the flat lands formed by the meandering Missouri river between Nebraska and Iowa.As background, corn plants will not produce mature ears of corn until they have completed their own sexual activity, with pollen dust blown from the tassels falling down and pollinating the newly emerging "hairs" connected to each kernel on the ears of corn which are growing lower on the stalk.Further, for many years farmers have been planting "hybrid corn seed" since it produces a higher quality of corn, with a greater yield per acre.While the seeds of hybrid corn are quite useful for both human and animal foods, and related products, they are not useful as new seeds to produce a new corn crop the following year. As a result, the source of new hybrid corn seed is the result of a cross breeding process in which the pollen of one species is used to pollinate the hairs on the ear of corn from another species.This is done commercially in large fields where, typically, the farmer will alternate two rows of the species preferred for its pollinating characteristics with six rows of a species chosen for its hair and kernel growth characteristics.In order to prevent each type of corn from pollinating itself, the farmer removes the tassels from each of the stalks in the six "female" rows, and leaves the tassels on the stalks on the "male" rows. These remaining tassels then pollinate the female corn, which is subsequently selectively harvested as high value hybrid seed corn for next years corn planting.Needless to say, with thousands of tassels to remove, and each tassel being at the top of a six to seven foot tall stalk of corn, this is a tremendous job - requiring lots of temporary help.That's where my job came in. I ran a corn detasseling crew of about twenty young people one summer to earn money for my continuing college education.Now, harking back to the introduction of this article, this job involves a planned activity to suppress and control the sexual activity of the corn. However, the specifics of the job involved even more.Since the jobs for the workers were temporary, and since their was a shortage of workers if only males were employed, the farmer would hire both young men and young women for the job.Perhaps needless to say, these young people were organized into male crews and female crews, and as a male leader of a male crew, my biggest job was to be sure that our scheduling maintained an adequate separation of these crews (for obvious reasons) in this forest of corn. 

New contributor Gene Dyer brings more natural (and unnatural) observations to next month's issue of Get Lost Magazine.