"Marrying" Maize

Ever heard of male and female maize? Neither had "Photo News" until we went out to Mr Huia Cooper's carefully-tended 14-acre plots of seed maize at Patutahi. There, mating a "male" hybrid with a "female" hybrid to produce moat of New Zealand's high-grade maize seed is a specialised business.

Every four rows of "female" plants have one row of "male" plants. The idea is that the pollen from the males fertilises the silks of the females. To make sure there is no hanky-panky about this, the tassels of the female rows are destroyed. Above and at left, girls aboard 11ft high tractor are cruising through 7ft high crop and pulling out tassels as they go. This job is done up to a dozen times to satisfy high standards of Department of Agriculture for whom crops are grown on a contract basis.

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Kathleen Wallace, Jean Speedy (Auckland), John Carruthers, Diane Cooper and Rae Musty (Auckland).

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Diane and Rae show how they pull tassels as machine moves slowly down the rows

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Mr Cooper points out maize "silk" forming