SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A longtime summer employer in western Iowa won’t be hiring students and adults for the hot and hard work of detasseling. Siouxland Detasseling CEO Ron Foster told the Sioux City Journal that the area decline in seed corn production led to the cutback on hiring. Since 1983 Siouxland has hired more than 200 workers each summer.

Detasselers walk through the rows of corn and pull the pollinating tassels off the top of the plants that will produce seed for future planting. Siouxland Detasseling crews usually work fields north of Onawa to Salix in Iowa and the Jefferson and Elk Point areas in South Dakota.