Have you ever wondered how that cotton shirt you’re sporting went from a wild plant in the field to a finished product you can wear? Cotton production is a unique and intriguing process. It involves specialized knowledge and equipment such as cotton harvester parts.
To beef up your knowledge of this process, use the following seasonal schedule of cotton planting, growth and production. If you have additional questions, feel free to contact an expert in cotton harvester parts for answers.
Spring
In the spring, cotton seeds are planted. Farmers organize these plantings into long rows called furrows. After a few weeks, the plant begins to emerge from the soil. Growers must faithfully water the crops if rainfall is insufficient for growth. They must also remove weeds to ensure they do not choke the cotton plants, as well as check for bugs or other pest invasions and take steps to control for them. Fertilizer is also typically added at this time. By the end of spring, cotton flowers appear. Bees and other insects pollinate the flowers.
Summer
During the summer, cotton farmers must continue to water the crop and check it for pests. Throughout this season, the plant grows into a bushy shrub that is about three feet tall. Cotton bolls also appear, splitting to reveal seeds and the white fluffy cotton that will be used for cotton products.
Fall
Fall is the time for harvest. Growers pick the cotton and pack it into bales or modules. It is then sent to the cotton gin, where it is separated into seed and fluff. The fluffy lint is then packed into bales.
Winter
Once the cotton has been packed, it is sent to spinning mills. Farmers prepare their fields for the next season’s crop, and manufacturers start working on the fresh batch of cotton.
Year-Round Manufacturing
Once the cotton reaches textile mills, it is crafted into a variety of products we use every day. It is spun, dyed, knitted and woven into fabrics. Using these processes, manufacturers transform cotton into clothing, diapers, filters, beauty products, blankets and more.
In addition to these uses for the fluffy material of the plant, other byproducts of cotton can be applied for a variety of uses. In fact, most of what is harvested is useful in some way. For example, the oil from the cotton plant is used in products such as cereal and potato chips. The leftover meal is used as animal feed.
With so many uses, it’s easy to see why cotton is such a popular commodity and why the cotton industry remains a major player in the world economy.
Learn More
Do you have questions about the cotton production process or cotton harvester parts? Certi-Pik, USA is your go-to source. We fabricate replacement parts for picking units and offer a broad list of specialty items and sheet metal parts for rebuilding units, including camtracks, drumheads, spindles and spindle nuts, picker and grid bars, slip clutches, lubrication hoses, stalk lifters and more. Contact us today to find out about our 50 percent savings!
Have you ever noticed that one of those things everyone remembers from elementary school history class is that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin? What else do we know about the history of this industry? How has it grown through the years? How has it affected the country as cotton picker parts grew in demand and the industry expanded?
You might be surprised at how much the cotton industry has changed through the years and what an interesting history this industry holds. Read on to discover more.
Cotton in the West
Of course, Eli Whitney wasn’t the first person to contribute to the cotton industry. This fabric was common during the Middle Ages, when it was hand-woven on looms. Ancient Egyptians even grew and spun cotton. It was during the 12th century that cotton weaving was spread to Europe. Around 1350, the spinning wheel was introduced to this part of the world, and by the 15th century several ports had become important, profitable cotton trading hubs.
When Christopher Columbus reached the New World, he discovered natives clad in cotton garments. Yet it wasn’t until the 1790s that the young United States would become a large consumer of cotton goods. At that time, U.S. cotton production was minimal. However, increasing British demand for the products spurred growth in the industry, and innovations in cotton collection and weaving made additional rapid growth possible.
This was when Eli Whitney and his key invention entered the scene. The modern cotton gin increased cotton production and pushed the commodity ahead of tobacco as the main cash crop in the South. By the 1830s, the U.S. had become the world’s top producer of cotton. The plant continued to dominate the South until the 20th century, when the economy began to diversify.
Modern Challenges and Growth
During the 20th century, boll weevils, a type of beetle that feeds on cotton, created tough challenges for the cotton industry. These pests caused billions in damages. They posed such a threat that the Boll Weevil Research Laboratory was established in the 1950s. This organization created lures and traps which successfully fought back against these invaders.
For modern cotton production, biotechnology has become an important factor. Genetically modified cotton can resist chemicals and repel insects. These innovations have helped keep cotton in demand and profitable.
Since the 1980s, demand for cotton has doubled. The U.S. is now the third main producer of the commodity, behind India and China. The cotton industry remains a major employer globally and a popular product around the world.
Discover More
Would you like to learn more about cotton, its history and the modern use of cotton picker parts? Whether you are simply curious or need information to improve your current production, contact the experts at Certi-Pik, USA. We fabricate replacement parts for picking units and offer a broad list of specialty items and sheet metal parts for rebuilding units. Contact us today to receive up to 50 percent savings on quality replacement parts for your John Deere or Case IH Cotton Harvesters.
Cotton has been one of the most important crops in America since the colonial days. Once the Industrial Revolution kicked into full gear, inventors began tinkering with ways to develop machines that would pick cotton for them, rather than having to have tons of workers out in the field picking it by hand.
In the late 1920s, John Daniel Rust began developing the very first practical cotton picker. There are other inventors who had attempted to create mechanical cotton pickers of their own, using barbed spindles that twisted the fibers onto the spindle, pulling the cotton off the boll as a result. However, those designs were often not functional, and were impractical due to how easily the spindles would get clogged up with cotton.
Rust’s design, which had a major impact on the way cotton pickers would be designed in years to come, featured a smooth, moist spindle that would strip the cotton fibers off the boll without resulting in a machinery clog. By 1933, he had his first patent for a cotton picker, and eventually collected 47 total patents (along with his brother Mack) for cotton picking machinery.
Of course, as the Great Depression was underway at this time, it was nearly impossible to get the financing they needed to make their mechanical cotton picker used on a widespread basis. But they continued working nonetheless.
Breakthroughs and adoption
In 1935, John and Mack Rust founded their Rust Cotton Picker Company in Memphis, Tennessee. The next year, they demonstrated their model of the Rust picker at the Delta Experiment Station in Stoneville, Mississippi. This was a significant step forward for the brothers. Even though the picker did have some significant drawbacks and deficiencies, the idea of a mechanical cotton picker was extremely attractive to farmers and investors in the area. The demonstration resulted in significant nationwide attention and press coverage.
Despite the greater coverage, though, the brothers did not have the resources needed to manufacture their cotton picker on a much larger scale. As such, other companies swooped in to attempt to create their own cotton pickers that were not based on the Rust brothers’ patents.
The arrival of World War II put a significant delay on widespread adoption of cotton pickers, even as International Harvester developed its first commercially successful cotton picker in 1944.
Once the war was over, the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company started manufacturing cotton pickers that improved on many parts of the Rusts’ design. The success of this machinery led to the development of other pickers, with the technology being gradually improved as more and more American cotton farmers adopted the technology.
Today’s cotton pickers are obviously more advanced and easier to use, but many of the basic elements still hearken back to the initial design created by the Rust brothers in the 1930s.
For more information about the history of cotton pickers, contact Certi-Pik, USA today. We specialize in the fabrication and sale of a wide range of cotton picker parts, and look forward to showing you what we can do for you!
The development of the mechanical cotton picker goes back to the early 1930s, and its proliferation and improvement in the decades that followed made for significantly easier harvesting of cotton. No longer would farmers have to rely on laborers to go out and work the fields all day picking cotton off the bolls—instead, they could invest in a cotton picker that would get the job done in a fraction of the time while also saving a significant amount of money in labor costs in the long run. This increased production and harvesting capability at lower costs had a massive effect on the cotton industry, and as such, on the textile industries as well.
But how does a mechanical cotton picker work? Let’s take a closer look.
Two Main Types of Cotton Picker Machines
In the old days, the earliest cotton pickers only were able to harvest a single row of cotton at a time. Even with this relative inefficiency, however, they still would replace up to 40 hand laborers in the field, saving a whole lot of time and money.
Today’s cotton pickers have obviously evolved quite a bit since those days. These self-propelled machines are capable of removing cotton lint and seed from plants at a rate of up to six rows at a time.
There are two main types of pickers used most commonly on cotton farms today: the “stripper” picker (primarily found in Texas and Arkansas) and the “spindle” picker.
The cotton stripper removes the lint from the plant, as well as a fair amount of plant matter, including bolls that have not yet opened up. The plant matter gets separated from the lint later on in the process, as heavier matter gets separated from the lint before the lint gets moved to its end point in the basket at the back of the picker.
Spindle pickers use rows of barbed spindles, similar to those that had been used to less efficient effect in the early days of mechanical cotton pickers. These spindles rotate very quickly and pluck the seed-cotton off the plant. That seed-cotton then gets taken off the spindles with the use of a counter-rotating doffer, and blown upward into the basket that collects the cotton.
After the basket in either type of picker is full, the picker then dumps that seed-cotton into an area known as a module builder, which compacts the cotton into a brick-like form. These cotton “bricks” can weigh up to 21,000 lbs each and are then stored either in the gin yard or the field until it can be run through a cotton gin. The ginned bales then weigh about 480 lbs.
This is a very basic overview of how a cotton picker works, but it should give you an idea of the efficiency inventors have developed in these machines over the course of the last eight decades. For more information about the type of cotton picker that might be the best solution for your needs, contact the experts at Certi-Pik, USA. We’re your premier source for replacement cotton picker parts for John Deere and Case IH equipment!
When it comes to purchasing new parts for your cotton harvester, there is a wide variety of factors that might figure into your purchasing decision. While there are many different things that you can use to help you decide where to purchase your parts, one of the most important things to consider is Better Business Bureau (BBB) accreditation. Better Business Bureau accreditation can help you determine whether you can trust a company to provide you with the level of security and customer service that you are looking for. Read on to find out more about why you should work with a BBB-accredited business when you need to buy cotton harvester parts.
BBB accreditation basics
So, what exactly is the Better Business Bureau? The BBB is an organization that’s designed to help consumers make better decisions about the businesses that they choose to work with. When people purchase a product or hire a company to provide a service, they want to feel confident that they are working with a business that they can trust to meet their needs. In order for a company to receive BBB accreditation, they must agree to adhere to a set of guidelines and standards regarding fairness and honesty.
Here are some of the benefits of working with a BBB-accredited provider of cotton harvester parts:
Objective approval: The BBB is a third-party organization that provides unbiased information about its members. The BBB doesn’t have an incentive to accredit certain businesses, so you can trust that they will provide you with objective information about the businesses that you’re considering work with.
Integrity: You want to work with a business that is going to be honest with you and provide you with quality products and services, and choosing to work with a business that’s accredited by the BBB can help you get there. BBB-accredited businesses are held to high standards of integrity to protect consumers from unethical business practices. Businesses that are accredited by the BBB also engage in continuous self-evaluation and improvement in order to maintain their accreditation eligibility.
Investment in customers: In order to be accredited by the BBB, a business must go through an approval process and agree to certain requirements. This process isn’t always easy, so if a business goes through the trouble of seeking accreditation, it demonstrates that they are committed to their customers. This kind of investment on the part of a business allows you to feel more confident that they have your best interests in mind.
At Certi-Pik, USA, we are proud to be accredited by the Better Business Bureau, with a long-standing track record for providing quality cotton harvester parts to our customers. We’ve been in business since 1988, and we have developed a strong reputation for the quality of our products and our customer service. Find out more about what we have to offer by giving us a call today. We would be happy to provide you with more information about what we can do for you when you reach out to our team!
