Disruptive Technologies

Course site for Disruptive Technologies. Exploring identity, community, & design.

Corn — Who Knew?

One of the more intriguing things I learned in class yesterday was that Jay has spent time Detasseling Corn. Prior to last night I had no idea that was even a thing … well a quick google search later and I have done the deep dive into the life of a detasseler! It is interesting that in most of the YouTube videos I watched they bus high school kids in to do the dirty work … creating an ad-hoc corn detasseling community in the corn field.

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3 Comments

  1. Jay.Loomis@stonybrook.edu

    January 31, 2015 at 6:20 am

    This brings me back to the good old days! Cole, Thanks for posting…
    I started when I was 14, and there were kids younger than me trudging through mud, sweating in the sun, and slicing their fingers on serrated maize leaves.
    It was hard work, but I still see vivid memories in my mind of
    bright blue sky and cotton clouds
    above sea of deep green growing,
    emerging from brown earth…

    It had its moments 🙂

    • Jay … I spent my summers as a kid living in a cottage on a creek in north east PA — no TV, just summers of swimming, reading, adventures, and the like. Our cottage was right next to a huge corn field — it was animal corn, so no detassleing in my backyard, but your very descriptive words made me remember when I was a kid walking the endless rows, occasionally slicing a finger on the leaves, looking through the green to the blue sky above.

  2. Ha ha ha …. very interesting. My goodness Jay, this must’ve been so hard. I should send my kids there for “Summer camp” #spoiledbrats

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