Cotton pickers rejoice—cotton picking season is almost upon us! It’s time to do some hard work and reap the rewards. We wish everyone a safe and bountiful cotton picking season, and we know that having properly maintained, effective equipment is a major factor in a successful cotton harvest.
Keeping your cotton harvester and cotton harvester parts in good shape doesn’t have to be very difficult. In fact, once you get used to the different safety precautions and maintenance procedures, they will soon become second nature.
With that in mind, here is an overview of how you can keep your cotton harvester in good condition, and avoid needing emergency cotton harvester replacement parts this cotton picking season.
Keep it safe
Above all else, you need to make the safety of yourself and your crew a priority this picking season, and at all times. That means avoiding dry, windy picking conditions, and avoiding other common hazards, such as scrap metal, rocks and bricks blocking your path, trash and lint accumulation on your equipment and inexperienced or careless machine operators.
Fires are a major concern for any cotton picker, and for good reason: they can wipe out your entire crop, not to mention put you and your crew and loved ones in danger. Take some time to really study fire safety before this picking season begins, and consult an expert if necessary.
Maintenance and cleaning
Another major factor in having a successful cotton picking season is ensuring that your cotton picker is properly cleaned and maintained.
You can find a lot of cotton picker maintenance and cleaning tips in the other posts on this blog. Whether you use high water pressure, low water pressure or high air pressure to clean your cotton picker, make sure you follow proper safety protocol. And remember: having a well-maintained cotton picker means you have a good chance of making it through picking season without needing any emergency repairs or part replacements.
Moisture considerations
Whether you are a seasoned cotton farmer or this is your very first cotton season, knowing exactly when to begin picking can be tough. This decision depends largely on moisture conditions—if it’s too dry outside, then a fire can easily start, but too much moisture can damage your product and result in a lot of lint buildup on your machine.
Here’s a good general rule of thumb: assess the moisture content of your cotton each morning before picking, so you can closely track where it’s at.
Here to help
Now that you know the basics of how to keep your cotton harvester and cotton harvester parts in good shape during picking season, you are set up to have a bountiful and relatively stress-free season! That said, unexpected things can come up, and we are here for you when that does occur.
If you find yourself in need of maintenance or new Case IH cotton harvester parts this cotton picking season, please feel free to get in touch with Certi-Pik, USA. With years of experience and a helpful, highly knowledgeable staff, we can help get your picking season back on track in no time.
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!
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!
Agriculture has come a long way since it was first developed thousands of years ago. However, many of the crops that have been popular throughout the history of agriculture continue to be staples in our modern economy. One of the crops that’s been in consistently high demand for hundreds of years is cotton, a fibrous crop that’s harvested for use in textiles, clothing and other consumer products. However, the equipment that we use to harvest this crop today is worlds away from original cotton harvesting methods. When you look back on the history of cotton picking and harvesting machinery, you can appreciate just how far this industry has come in the last several hundred years.
Before mechanical harvesting
Long before any mechanical device was created to harvest cotton, cotton was picked by hand. This process was incredibly labor and time intensive, and made it difficult for large cotton producers to keep up with demand in a timely and efficient manner. While there were many advances made in cotton processing technology, including the development of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton harvesting was not improved significantly until the early 20th century with the application of locomotive technology.
Cotton harvesting machinery
The first practical cotton picker was invented by John Daniel Rust during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The machine that Rust invented had smooth spindles that were wet with water to prevent cotton from being trapped in the mechanical components of the machine. This cotton harvesting machine could effectively separate cotton fibers from the rest of the plant and had the capacity to significantly boost production time and efficiency.
While Rust did establish a cotton picker manufacturing company along with his brother Mack Rust, the company suffered from the financial difficulties that many businesses experienced in the Depression-era United States. After the Great Depression, mechanical cotton picker development and production was delayed again, this time by World War II. The first successful commercial cotton picker was produced in 1944 and based on the design concepts of the Rust brothers.
In the early days of commercial cotton pickers, the machinery was only capable of harvesting a single row of cotton at a time. Today, cotton pickers can pick cotton from up to six rows at a time. Cotton harvester parts are made with innovative designs that are intended to maximize performance and yield. Modern cotton picking machinery can separate cotton fibers from the plant in a way that promotes incredibly efficient processing and distribution.
Find quality cotton harvester parts
At Certi-Pik, USA, we are proud to be part of an industry that has grown by leaps and bounds since it began. Since 1988, we have provided exceptional cotton picker parts for a wide variety of machinery. In addition to our existing selection of replacement parts, we’re also proud to fabricate customized parts based on your machinery and what you’re looking for. Reach out to us today to get started with your next parts order or to find out more about the services that we offer.
Have you ever wondered exactly what types of factors influence the prices of American cotton? Cotton farmers pay close attention to these prices, but don’t always have a clear sense of exactly what causes their regular fluctuations.
From a cotton harvester parts company, here are a few of the biggest factors that play a role in determining the price of cotton on a national and international scale:
Production totals: As the amount of cotton being produced rises and falls, so too do the prices for the crop. This is simple supply and demand in action—the more in demand the product is, the more expensive it will become. Some years have better outputs than others due to a variety of factors, including weather, bug infestations and plant diseases. Recent years have seen lower outputs than historical levels, which has led to increases in general crop prices.
Economic growth: The worse off an economy is, the less likely consumers are going to be to want to spend money on cotton-based items like jeans, shirts and bedsheets. However, as the economy continues to grow, so too do people’s expendable incomes and the amount of money they’re willing to spend on these items. Therefore, the stronger the economy, the higher the prices for cotton become.
Oil prices: It might be confusing at first to consider that oil prices and cotton prices could be at all linked. However, consider this: cotton has the single largest per-acre energy cost out of all farmed items, which means changes in oil price also directly affect changes of cotton prices. The more expensive oil becomes, the more expensive cotton becomes as well, because increased oil prices mean increased costs of harvesting that cotton, not to mention shipping it around the globe.
Seasonal changes: The price of cotton can vary depending on the time of year. The prices usually hit their peak in February and March every year, and tend to bottom out around August. This has to do with the harvest cycles and the times of year at which there is the most demand for cotton goods.
International factors: Overseas demand for cotton can also influence the prices here in the United States. China, for example, had been stockpiling cotton for years, which led to artificially inflated prices. When China stopped its stockpiling program, these prices began to come back down to earth.
Government policies: Many countries that produce cotton try to shield their farmers and the textile industries from outside competition, but when these policies change there can be a big impact on other cotton producers around the world.
Weather: Changes in climate and weather patterns can have an effect on cotton prices, especially when there are droughts. Cotton depends on fertile soil, up to four feet of water each year, plenty of sunshine and no frost, and a lack of any of these factors could result in major cotton production problems and resulting price changes.
These are just a few of the factors that affect cotton prices nationally and internationally. To speak with an expert at a cotton harvester parts company, contact Certi-Pik, USA today.
