ParaDyme® Steering in Seed Corn Production

Across the Corn Belt, you will find many acres dedicated to the passing forward of seed corn traits to the next crop.  An important role in this process is making sure the proper traits are passed from one generation to the next.  Most farm kids can remember spending countless hours of their childhood in the fields walking beans and detasseling corn during the long summer days of July and August. 

With the advent of herbicide resistant crops, walking beans has (for the most part) fallen to the wayside, but to this day seed corn companies still rely on the detasseling of the corn crop to ensure the most desired traits are passed to the next generation. Over the years, this process has gone from walking the rows and pulling each individual tassel to riding on machines that eliminate the walking part of the equation. 

One of the latest developments has been detasseling machines that mechanically pull the tassels off the crop, reducing the manual labor to checking the fields for tassels missed. One operator of a detasseling machine has come to utilizing automated steering to make his day go a little easier.  Dave Granzow of McCallsburg, IA has had his Hagie Chassis fitted with a ParaDyme® steering system.  With the steering system installed, he can concentrate on making sure the tassels are getting pulled properly and let the ParaDyme worry about steering down the corn rows.

Below are some pictures of Granzow's detasseling machine fitted with the ParaDyme. As with other operations around the farm, the use of autosteer can make the simple operation of the machine less stressful and reduce operator fatigue.