picking corn

[LorenMN]

Working on picking 4 acres with a #10 New Idea picker and my WD. SLOWWWW going. 1st gear is too fast, have to ride the hand clutch to ease into the stalks. My 494 planter was set a little high, probably close to 35000 population. Some places there"s a stalk every 3". Lot"s of small ears, but that"s OK, since I"m going to grind it for feeding steers. We had a lot of rain in June and heavy black dirt to carry it through July. Not a bad crop, considering that I didn"t spray, but we cultivated once a week. Renters combined some of our farm 2 weeks ago, said moisture was 18% then, so it should be plenty dry to crib. They said they were getting 150 bu/acre, but I think they"re probably getting better than that.

Getting quite a bit of shelling and about 1/3 of the ears aren"t getting husked completely, but not much I can do about it now. Cribbing it in a 16" wire crib with a lot of ventilators, so I think it should keep OK. Now if that big elevator chain will stay together for more than a 1/2 hour at a time, I might just finish the field this week.




 

[Charlie M]

I'm going to be doing the same thing on 3 acres in about a week but I have a IH 1-PR picker and a NI323. Depends on how much mud I have as to which picker I use. I'm in western NY and we had a pretty dry summer. Ears aren't as big as they could be but don't look any worse than the big guys crop. I store mine in a home made crib and in past years anything 30% or less did fine - let it finish drying in the crib. I'll be shelling mine and feeding some poultry and a couple of pigs if we can find pigs next year. I have got 2 to finish feeding this year. I think I'll post some pictures when I get going.
 

[rrlund]

I've been having a devil of a time. The stalks and leaves have been so dry and brittle,they're breaking off and laying down in the bottom of the primary elevator between the snapping rolls on my 325. We had a little bit of mist yesterday,made all the difference in the world. Ran right along in 3rd gear after that. Had rain this morning but the sun's out now. Gonna get back in to it this afternoon.
 

[LorenMN]

That might be some of the reason for my shelling problem. Seems like a lot of trash laying on the snapping rolls and the primary elevator, causing the ears to bang around too much. Doesn't look like any rain in the forecast yet for us in central MN. My primary elevator chain seemed way too loose, and I think it was catching on the guides or corn stalks underneath and breaking links. I made some spacers last nightto get the tighteners further out, so I'll see if that helps.
 

[donjr]

NI's are known for some butt shelling. And with the #7 and 10 pickers, you might want to look at your husking bed. The husking rolls should have a bunch of little nubs that grab the husk and pull it thru the rolls. They usually break or fall out with age. You may find them at an older dealer, but chances are slim to none. I had one, and solved some of the husking problem by welding some bead on the husking rolls in the area where the nubs had been. If the rolls are not pulling stalks through, again roughen them with aome welding beads to make them grab the stalks better. Hope this helps.
 

[LorenMN]

I think the husking rollers are fairly smooth, so that might be part of the problem. Maybe I'll try welding some beads on them today before I try it again. The picker is missing one of the top presser rolls, so that probably doesn't help much either.
 

[paul]

Same all over here, if you didn't pick when it was 25% moisture, it's going to shell this year, and the husks and stalk bits are terrible.

Sold 1500 to a neighbor, he picked it with his equipment, we were picking mid September & had to open several fields to find some wet enough not to shell. It went from 20% when we sampled it to 16% in 2 days, so had to find anouther field that was holding at 20%. He has a wire fat crib so likes it under 20-21%, I've got a wooden crib that is skiny so do well with any corn under 28%...

I'm only doing a couple loads for a neighbor of ear corn, plus I had 2 acres of June-planted corn that is wet enough to pick well for myself.

At $7, the rest is going through the combine and ready for town....

--->Paul
 

[rrlund]

Here's a few that I took today.






 

[paul]

So what size wagons are those?

I got 4 Parker 220bu wagons, but have to take the front of the extension off, and am lucky if I get 100 bu of ear corn in a load, the back of the wagon is pretty empty. I'd like to figure something a little better out, seems I'm wasting space & time and worse yet - effort! You got your wagons full all around in the other pics you have up?

--->Paul
 

[rrlund]

They're Killbros 350s. Don't know just how many bushels they'll hold,but I'm filling a 1000 crate crib with 7 loads.
 

[sammydwm]

Picking has been a dream here. Last time I tried the old picker crapped out and I ended up picking 2 acres by hand.
This year the newer picker is working like a fine Swiss watch. Only 3 acres to do.
No cribs around here or even elevators for that matter...just snowfence and a shovel




 

[LorenMN]

Looked at the picker yesterday and I see what you mean about the nubs on the rollers. Looks like about 3/4 of them are still there. Looks like the extensions I made to tighten the first elevator helped, picked a load and a half last night without a breakdown. Been seeing quite a few ears getting knocked off the stocks before going into the snapping rollers. Might have to take a walk through the field to see what we can pick up before plowing. Too bad I don't have the field fenced yet, so I could let the cows out there to clean it up.
 

[Rich Iowa]

All you guys picking corn make me envious. Something about cornpickers grabs my attention and love to get one to put to use.
 

[donjr]

I removed the top pressers on mine and it didn' make much difference. Try putting some weld beads on your snapping rolls. It will help pull the trash through. Just short low heat beads on the high spots of the rolls; it'll help the rolls to grab the stalk better.
 

[rrlund]

Some varieties of corn just husk easier than others too though. I had some a few years ago that made the biggest mess I'd ever seen. I had a different variety on one side of one field. I could pick down on that and it was clean as a whistle. The rest of it,I couldn't get a husk off any of it. I thought I'd have to dynamite that junk out of the cribs. Tore all the rubber fingers off the wheels in the husking bed trying to run it through.