Category: Cotton Picker Parts

When Should You Start Picking Your Cotton?

admin |

If you are knew to the world of cotton picking, or are just looking to maximize your efficiency and get the best yield possible, then there is one crucial question you ought to be asking: When in the season, and on a day-to-day basis, should I start picking my cotton crop?

As any experienced cotton picker knows, the answer to this question often hinges on the balance between getting the most cotton possible without needing to stop to clean or care for your equipment. To that end, here are a few tips on when to start picking cotton, from your cotton picker parts specialist.

Seeing green

One crucial factor to consider when picking cotton is the amount of green leaves you see on your cotton stalks. While green leaves signify a fresh crop, they can also add a good amount of moisture to your cotton crop. This might sound like a positive thing to an outsider, but cotton growers know that moisture can clog up your cotton picking equipment, necessitating more breaks from picking and slowing down the entire process.

However, waiting for the green leaves to disappear completely is not an option, as this will result in a lower crop yield. Experts tend to agree that picking cotton once somewhere between 85 and 90 percent of the field is open makes for the highest yield and the most efficient picking process. By keeping an eye on your cotton fields every day, you should be able to determine this best picking time for you and your plants.

Measuring humidity

Another major factor to be considered when picking cotton is humidity in the air. For many crops, farmers try to get up as early as possible and start picking, so that they can be done before the harsh heat sets in for the day.

But with cotton, picking too early in the morning might not be ideal, because humidity levels are often at their highest in the morning. In fact, it is not uncommon to see humidity levels at 90 percent each morning in cotton country. As mentioned above, too much moisture can be bad both for the plant and for the overall picking process.

Nighttime also sees high humidity levels, again as high as 90 percent. This leaves us with midday, when humidity levels can drop to somewhere between 30 and 40 percent. This is generally considered prime time for cotton pickers everywhere.

Buying the best

If you want to have the best possible yield without sacrificing efficiency, you need to be thinking about more than just timing. While taking steps to avoid high moisture and humidity levels is important, picking the right gear is just as crucial, and perhaps even more so. After all, quality equipment will inherently be more efficient and make for a better picking experience.

If you are looking for the best cotton pickers and cotton picker parts on the market, it is time for you to get in touch with Certi-Pik, USA. We look forward to helping you find the right equipment for your cotton business.

Preseason Maintenance Items for Cotton Harvesting Units

admin |

Year in and year out, cotton pickers experience a tremendous degree of wear and tear as they navigate thousands of acres of crops, diligently picking bolls off of millions of stalks. And while the modern marvels of machinery have made it possible for harvesters to do this seemingly with ease, there’s still a high degree of maintenance that’s required to make sure harvesters are kept functional and efficient.

Preseason is the time to take a proactive approach to maintaining the functionality of a harvester. Cleaning, calibrating and replacing John Deere cotton picker parts before the harvest season is a great way to ensure yet another year of efficient harvesting, while also ensuring your investment in a picker remains sound. Take a look at just some of the maintenance items that should be making the list each preseason:

The preseason list goes on and on, also encompassing routine systems such as compressor doors, plant lifters, picker ribs and air conveyance systems. Inspection and maintenance of every part is critical in the preseason and will absolutely prevent costly setbacks and damages come the harvest time. Moreover, paying attention to John Deere cotton picker parts in the preseason allows for more time spent assessing damages or operations before the harvester needs to be functional.

When Do You Need New Cotton Picker Parts?

admin |

It is always less expensive to replace cotton picker parts than the entire harvester. That is why it is important to pay attention and know when parts are starting to show shortcomings. Start by being aware of these five signs that it may be time to order new parts and increase the efficiency of your harvest:

If your harvester requires new parts or a rebuild, contact Certi-Pik, USA for a catalog. We fabricate parts for many models of picking units and would be glad to help you achieve a more productive harvest.

How to Clean Cotton Picker Components

admin |

Every good cotton grower knows that even when the last acre of cotton is harvested and baled up, the work isn’t done—the harvester and baler will need to be properly tended to and maintained before they can be put away for the season. Now, this isn’t nearly as simple as driving it into an agriculture building and hosing it off—it takes a clear-cut approach to cleaning all of the picker and baler parts thoroughly, so they’re ready to function properly for next year’s harvest.

Take a look at a few of the most effective methods of cleaning individual picker and baler parts, to make sure you’re giving the vital components of these machines a reprieve from the wear and tear of being put away dirty:

Now, for the most part, blasting your cotton harvester or baler with compressed air will get the job done while you pick out larger debris with your hands. When all is said and done—if you’re done for the season—it’s also a good idea to give your equipment a good wipe-down. Use commercial agricultural machine cleaner for the façade of the equipment, taking care to gently address areas that are of a delicate nature.

When you’re done, make sure everything is in top working order before stowing your equipment—that way, you’ll be ready for next year!

The History of Cotton Pickers & Cotton Harvester Parts

admin |

Cotton has long been one of the staple commodities of the United States and it could be argued that our burgeoning commerce today is a product of the prolific cotton industry from centuries past. Cotton has breathed life into numerous facets of industry and driven innovation in a way that’s matched only by natural resources in historical impact. Today, it’s easy to forget that the many machines and techniques we use for harvesting cotton were once just prospects, driven to fruition by the sheer demand of the cotton trade.

History of Cotton Picker Machines

Take a look at a brief history of cotton picking technologies and all of the effort it took to bring this industry to the high level of cotton harvester parts and components we utilize today:

When Did Cotton Picking End?

Prior to the 1930s, cotton harvesting was done entirely by picking cotton by hand end—it wasn’t until a man named John Rust came up with a “harvesting locomotive” in the late 1930s that any semblance of harvesting innovation became a reality. Unfortunately, Rust’s prototype was expensive, unreliable and prone to breaking down, which kept it from any real commercial exposure. Only a few models were produced and those quickly faded into obscurity as a pipe dream… until the mid 1940s!

When Was the Cotton Picker Invented?

Starting in the early 1940s, improvements were made to Rust’s ideas and a comprehensive redesign of the harvesting locomotive was undertaken. The product was a new and improved harvester—the first to feature cotton picker spindles and what would one day become doffers. But, while this invention did work to reduce labor dramatically, it also slightly degraded the cotton and soon, the need for more improvement came to light.

Emerging Ideas for Cotton Harvesting

In the 1950s, the cotton harvester entered a phase that’s closer to what we see now than what we saw at the start. With a reinforced steel frame and multiple rows of cotton picker spindles, the harvester also featured a basket to catch and store cotton! In just ten short years, an operator’s cabin would be added to the design and material reinforcements would become a focus of improving the harvester.

Fast forward to 1980 and along comes John Deere: this is where tremendous improvements became to take form and cotton harvesters would quickly become the focus of mass production. Deere’s new and improved models featured a comprehensive overhaul of key cotton harvester parts, with an emphasis on quality, with the result being an increase in picking production by 85-95 percent! Thus, the four-row picker was born.

The New Age of Cotton Pickers

Today, John Deere remains an innovator in the world of cotton harvesting. With the six-row picker introduced in the mid 1990s and later, in 2009, the capability to bail cotton as it’s being picked, manual labor has been almost entirely eliminated from the harvesting of cotton. With state of the art parts and components, today’s cotton harvesters are the pinnacle of innovation, driven so far from modest beginnings just a century ago.

What’s next in the world of cotton harvester parts? It’s hard to tell, but it’s a safe bet to say that whatever the next innovation is, it’ll be one that makes harvesting cotton even easier on the hardworking farmers who continue to abide by this longstanding commodity.