Students detassle corn

Pioneer said that demand for its products is driving a 30 percent increase in the number of acres it needs for seed corn production in 2008.  That is on top of another significant increase in 2007.

Along with the increase in acres comes a sharp increase in the number of part-time workers needed in the fields this summer to detassel the corn – a key step in the process of producing the high-value hybrid seed corn that farmers will plant in the spring of 2009.

“Detasseling gives people – often young people, while they are off from school – near our seed production locations a chance to earn money over a couple weeks and still have some summer left to spend it,” said Bill Tomlinson, supply operations director, Pioneer Hi-Bred. 

Across North America, Pioneer plans to hire more than 30,000 detasselers this summer in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, Washington, and Ontario, Canada.  The detasseling season runs from late June or early July through the early or middle part of August, depending on when a field gets planted and the weather.