corn picking questions

[riverbend]

I'm getting ready to pick some tall heirloom corn (Jimmy Red). In the past I have used my H but the 350 has live PTO which is a nice feature. The H would run in 2nd and do a good job with matching the ground speed to the gathering chains. The 350 seems a little faster, so

1) Is the speed close enough if I'm not pulling the plants out ?
2) Should I just use the TA to slow it down ?

The corn is very tall and the ears are between 5 and 6 feet off the ground.
3) anything special I should think about ?
4) is there a work around if the stalks snap off before I get to the ear ?

Feel free to share any information/advice you think I should know.
Thanks
Greg

 

[Janicholson]

Unless you are going down hills steep enough to let the tractor picker and wagon coast, pulling the TA to reduce speed is just fine. With 1st and second to choose from both direct and TA, there should be a near perfect ground speed. Jim

 

[caterpillar guy]

Good looking 350. Since I never picked corn with a picker I can't say much about how it will work. I would imagine you could just use 2nd like you do with your H and if it seems to fast then pull the TA to let it slow down that much. If the stalk breaks off below the ear and before it gets in the picker you have 2 choices 1 stop and pick up the ear 2 just let it go and not worry about it.

 

[Charlie M]

I grow ear corn most years and pick it with my 1-PR picker and my M. My M is geared a bit faster than my H and I use 1st gear. I would use 1st gear with your tractor and save the TA if you have a situation where you just need to slow down for a few moments. If you run with the TA all the time you don't have that option. I'm not familiar with your breed of corn but I would think if its ready to be picked you wouldn't have a problem with the stalks breaking off unless that is a feature of the breed of corn. The picker is designed to run a stalk through and still get the ear but I don't think it would do well if most were breaking off. For ears that high up I would run the picker raised up as far as possible unless the corn is tipped and you need to get under it. Looks like you have one of the older 1-PR pickers as the later production had a couple of changes and a white elevator.

 

[F-Dean]

NEVER try to unclog the picker with it running! I have picked a lot of corn with a mounted picker on an M. I have also known a several farmers that lost fingers or part of their hand trying to unclog a running picker!

If you have problems with the picker pulling stocks, go as slow as you can with the PTO running as fast as you can.

PS: a picker will pick cleaner early in the morning when the husking rollers can get a better hold on the shucks.

You should have no problem with tall corn. The picking rollers will snap the ears off regardless.

 

[used red MN]

Actually 3rd gear in TA is slower than 2nd in Direct. Tractordata shows 3.8 mph in 2nd direct, and 3rd TA is 3.5, see link the lower section is for TA tractors. This exactly matches what is shown for the H in 2nd. Of course head the warning of others about no deceleration on hills. Sorry cannot help you with the other specific questions. We had a 350 with a Fast Hitch on the farm when I was growing up, great tractor.
Tractordata Farmall 350 transmission info

 

[Paul from MI]

I always found that my old Woods Bros picker husked cleaner when the fodder was bit damp and had less butt shelling then.

 

[charlieu]

As a kid growing up, my Dad had a Farmall 350 tractor and we had a 2 row New Idea pull type corn picker and I remember that 1st gear was used a lot and I know there were times the TA was used from one end of the field to the other when the corn was yielding good.

 

[riverbend]

Our neighbor lost most of his right hand when the husking rolls caught a button on the sleeve of his jacket. I'll be careful.

 

[riverbend]

This part of the field is very flat.

 

[used red MN]

In reply to Charlie, that save the TA talk is baloney. If the TA gear is best use it all day if you need to. When you are in direct the TA planetary gears are turning all the time any way but they are just not under load.

 

[FBH44]

Yep. Friend of mine has one hand left, had to amputate his own hand with a pocket knife to get out of it. True story.

 

[SDE]

save the TA if you have a situation where you just need to slow down for a few moments.

Exactly what the TA is designed for. IMO

 

[the tractor vet]

Only once did we ever pick corn with a one row picker as we normally picked corn with a 450 D and a 319 New Idea super picker and a M with a 2 ME . Two tractors and pickers at the same time . The one year it turned super wet and we spent more time dragging just the 450 out . We stopped picking hopping it would freeze and it never did . So to get the corn off we borrowed a neighbors 323 and put it behind our Case 310 G Dozer as it had three point and PTO , Put the M up on blocks and put the tires on the one 450 with the wide ft to help pull the dozer . Vary slow going and plum tore the fields up . But on a normal year picking was done in first gear . Did not matter if it was the 450 D or the hopped up M , it had the 400 kit and a 450 cam and 450 carb and manifold . the neighbor with his 323 pulled by his 504 Diesel he ran first gear . Picking ear corn to me is a slow deal and one row at a time seams like it takes forever . Not till i changed to shelling did i feel like i was getting something done in a day . with two pickers running and six gravity boxes and two warm bodys running wagons with no break downs knocking off 15 acres was a great day. Switching to a COMBINE with only a two row head in one day i could knock off 28-30 acres if i could keep the grain away .And i did not have to eat all the dust and dirt.

 

[Highwayman]

Ive got a fried who lost his entire arm in a corn picker 40 years ago.
Hes still farming today. In his younger days he worked for a guy who was a character who described him like this: Hes a good man, he just cant use a hammer and chisel
Lol.

 

[gene bender]

thats what low gear is for and raise the picker up so you are not running more stalks thru and open the rolls. You are trying to use old tech machine do a difficult job why are you going so fast ground speed those pickers were made for slow ground speed and the tractor always used 1st gear BTDT

 

[Charlie M]

I'm not saying save the TA because I don't think it shouldn't be over used. I'm just suggesting having it available if you need it and just use a lower gear for speed for the overall job.

 

[riverbend]

It has been so long since I sorted out corn picking with the H that I don't remember exactly why I had to get the ground speed and the speed of the chains matched up. Seems like too slow and the stalks would bunch up at the end of the rollers and need to be cleared. Going faster helped. Part of it might be that these old varieties were never bred for standability and the stalks are fragile. Not sure. And like Tractor Vet said, it is already a slow process.

 

[DR. EVIL]

I'm pretty sure Dad picked in 2nd gear with our 2M-E picker on the '51 M. Most of those years were with the stock M gearing, Then he put Super M gearing in the M, 2nd, 3rd, & 4th were all faster, he may have picked in 1st a couple years, then he bought a nice '47 M with stock gearing, and picked in 2nd again.

 

[Frank Caldwell]

The gathering chains should run about 25 percent faster than ground speed. Too fast of gathering chains and the ears will be shaken off. Too slow and the ears are not pulled off at the right speed.

 

[gene bender]

IT WOULD BE PRETTY POOR CORN TO USE 2ND GEAR AS LOW WAS WHAT I USED EVEN THEN IT WAS PRETTY FAST IN MOST OF THE CORN HUSKING BED JUST WASNT THAT BIG

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

The TA drops you an entire gear give or take. It does not split the gears like on later tractors, at least not until 5th gear, but that's only because 5th is such a huge jump from 4th.

So 2nd TA is the same as 1st, and is nowhere near 2nd gear speed on an H. Running 2nd with the TA back would only gain you something if you could let the TA ahead and go faster some of the time.

3rd TA would be closer to 2nd on an H.

As far as "save the TA in case you need to slow down..." It's live PTO. Shoving the clutch to shift isn't the inconvenience that it would be on the H.

So my advice, is try a gear, and if it doesn't work, try a different gear.

 

[dhermesc]

At PTO speed an H moves at 3.5 MPH in second, at PTO speed a 350 moves 3.8 MPH in second.

Third gear is a much bigger difference, an H at PTO speed will go 4.3 MPH while a 350 at PTO speed will go 5.2 MPH


I think the biggest difference between ground speed in an H and a 350 in first and second is the tire size. 3rd & 4th are where the big jump in speeds occur.

 

[DR. EVIL]

Thanks, I really appreciate you making fun of the Corn crops my Dad raised, His landlord wouldn't let him use fertilizer, just a little lime every year or two. Landlord always said if you keep your manure hauled you didn't need no expensive fertilizer. Well, I guess he let the hogs & cattle starve so there wasn't much manure.
We got 75-80 BPA corn most years, The 80 we farmed with the neighbor got a little fertilizer on it, and it got the same yields. My Sister and I own that 80 now, our tenant sent us the Climate Field View yield maps from several years ago. With today's better hybrids, little manure from his two 1200 head of hogs in confinement buildings he got about 200 BPA most places, couple places he got just over 300 acres. But NOBODY got those yields in the 1960's.

If I was running along side Dad picking with the H and an empty wagon, in order to keep up with him picking I had to run 3rd gear at 2/3rds throttle. If your hulking bed didn't keep up I'd say you ran your rubber hulking rolls WAY TOO long, Dad put new Tractor Supply husking rolls in every other year, and still left a few husks on.

Somebody else made a smart azz reply to me on this forum years ago, and I left for 3 years. I think I'm about due to leave you mean mouthed old farts again!

 

[Stuart]

From some of your posts, your dont know as much about corn pickers, farmall a and b tractors and woods mower decks as you think. Just because you have been operating or using a specific machine for 50-60 years doesnt make you an expert

 

[LMack]

If you keep the header on the row the gathering chains do little but keep broken stalks and shook off ears from falling out of the front. The snapping rolls should be so fast that you never pull the stalks even in a higher gear. If you are dragging stalks, then you do not have your snapping roll space setting right. Once the stalk engages the snapping rolls it is down in a flash. You need to be running at standard PTO speed so that the snapping rolls will be moving fast enough. We ran in second, but my uncle ran in first. Same kind of picker and tractor but he said his tractor had a faster second and the picker could not keep up. I never knew the problem since I never drove his unit, but that picker worked fine in second on our tractor.

 

[gene bender]

i started picking corn with mounted picker in 1950 when did you start

 

[gene bender]

went from f-20 and one row pull to the M with two roe pull to m with HMD MOUNTED THEN 560D with same picker till combine ended up with 750 Massey and four row

 

[gene bender]

how many of you guys picked corn when we used checked wire and the hills were on 40inch centers and the rows were 40inch apart

 

[Stuart]

What us your point?

 

[Stuart]

The poorest corn was check planted corn. Thats why they went to rows like are planted today. Yield. Sounds you know a lot about picking poor yielding corn

 

[fastfarmall]

Growing up we had 3 neighbor's, that did,they raised a lot of hogs !