Broadcast cotton is grown in a dispersed pattern as opposed to the crowded row-planted cotton of conventional harvesting equipment. This allows the crop to utilize land, water, and fertilizer more effectively.
As the conveyor chain passes around the idler sprocket, the paddle moves by gravity to assume a position perpendicular to the ground and parallel to the crop. This provides uniform and deliberate height control while maintaining light contact of the header unit stripper bar tips with the ground.
1. Plan Your Harvest
Before the harvest starts it’s important to plan your operation and make sure that all necessary equipment is ready. This can include everything from obtaining equipment parts to planning your bottling schedule and ordering yeast/chemicals.
It’s also a good idea to prepare the field for harvest. This includes planting a cover crop that will help alleviate soil compaction caused by heavy machinery traffic.
Finally, be sure to check the weather before you start picking. It’s not safe to operate a cotton picker when the relative humidity is above 70% (lint moisture greater than 8%). Heavy morning dew and rain can extend drying time, making early morning or night picking inefficient.
2. Check the Weather
The weather is a big factor in harvesting efficiency. Avoid operating the picker in conditions with high relative humidity – a moisture pattern that is typical for late-fall days. This moisture pattern will raise seed cotton moisture above 12% — and the moisture level will remain elevated through most of the harvest. Evening dews and nighttime rain will also significantly delay the time required for free moisture to dry from lint before the picking starts. Localized weather forecasts and online resources will help you stay up to date on shifting conditions.
In addition to reducing picking efficiency, fires in a picker can quickly spread and destroy the machine and any harvested lint inside. Fires can spread through row units, igniting grease, diesel fuel, and high-pressure hydraulic oil.
3. Check the Equipment
Before harvest begins, it’s important to make sure that all equipment is in good working condition. Small repairs or adjustments can prevent major problems that could slow down the harvest.
Check that all fluid levels are up to manufacturer specifications. Keeping your equipment properly lubricated will minimize friction and enhance performance.
Inspect belts, chains, and hoses for signs of tension or wear. Replace any that are worn out or showing signs of age.
Also, clean cab windows to ensure good visibility from the operator’s seat. This will allow you to see potential fire hazards quickly and take action.
4. Adjust the Row Units
A fire on a cotton picker is devastating. It can burn tires, destroy the entire machine, and contaminate harvested cotton. Moreover, it can quickly spread to adjacent fields. Fuel, diesel fuel, high-pressure hydraulic oil, and other engine fluids rapidly accelerate a fire once they come in contact with the hot, dry cotton.
Before harvesting, check and adjust the row units to the proper height for the field conditions. Raising row units higher improves picking ability in fields with lower boll sets or that have rutted ground and obstacles.
Lowering row units lowers their ability to retrieve cotton. Also, lowering them allows more of the stripper bar tips to be positioned under the cotton bolls. Large accumulations of lint and trash buildup can decrease picker efficiency. Regularly remove these buildups before they become fire hazards. Likewise, regularly clean the baskets and bale chambers.
5. Check the Tires
Cotton pickers have come a long way in terms of efficiency. But yields still depend heavily on the performance of the equipment. This means that farmers must spend time ensuring that all the parts are in good working condition and operating properly.
Standard tires quickly reach their limits in terms of bearable load and maximum pressure. This leads to emptying the hopper more often or even stopping harvesting to avoid damaging the equipment.
You can avoid these problems by using FIRESTONE’s Maxi traction Harvest tires. These are specially designed for harvesters and can offer a bonus load of 14 tons more. However, it is important to respect 3 criteria to make full use of this additional capacity without harming the tires. This is how you get better results in less time.
6. Check the Wheels
The wheels on a cotton picker are important to its operation. When they aren’t properly inspected and maintained, the harvester may suffer damage and loss of efficiency.
Crooked rows compromise tracking and picking, resulting in waste and lost profit. Make sure your employees know how to center the row and take the time to train them in doing so.
Always inspect the cotton picker before starting work to ensure that no debris or materials are in the module chamber or basket. Also, never operate the machine when a fire hazard is present (fires often result from improper defoliation practices). If the machine starts to emit a smell of smoke or burning oil, immediately stop the machine and call for help. This will prevent the fire from spreading to other components, which could lead to a catastrophic fire.
7. Check the Bolls
As harvests continue to improve, it’s easy to forget that crop yields hinge largely on the overall functionality of cotton pickers. When these machines aren’t functioning at their best, yields will suffer. Fortunately, there are simple ways to prevent this from happening.
Inspect and adjust the spindle tip clearance and picker head height. These two components must be perfectly calibrated in order to function properly. If you’re unsure how to do this, consult a cotton picker parts specialist for assistance.
Be sure to unload any cotton in the basket, module chamber, or surge hopper each morning before harvesting begins. This helps to lower the potential for fire throughout the day. Also, it makes it easier to clean and service the machine. Aside from these precautions, the most important thing to do is keep an eye out for signs of smoke or fire.
8. Check the Spindles
If you notice any discrepancies in your cotton harvester and have noticed that the efficiency of your machine is suffering, it might be due to issues with the spindles. As one of the most important aspects of your harvester, it’s crucial that you work with an expert purveyor of cotton picker parts to ensure that the spindle tip clearance and the doffer height are properly calibrated before you start harvesting.
Spindles wear more in areas with greater side force on the spindle tips passing beneath doffers. This equates to less aggressive picking in those zones and reduced overall picking efficiency. In addition, it’s critical to check the paddle behavior and line of travel relative to stripper bars (cobra bars) to ensure that no dead action zones inhibit a positive and aggressive flow into a cross auger.
9. Check the Compressor
Independent studies have shown that crop yields can be reduced by up to 20 percent if a harvester is not adequately maintained. While there are many factors that contribute to this, one of the most important is the performance of the harvester itself.
Start by locating the copper tube that is brazed into your compressor. Clean it off and then use a multimeter to ohm out the plug and wires, including the common, run, and start winding. A good compressor will read infinite ohms to ground, while a shorted motor will not read any ohms to ground at all.
Maintain your cotton harvester with expert inspections and repairs by a local John Deere dealer. Ensure optimal operation with Connected Support, which gives you remote display access and Expert Alerts. Our equipment is supported by the most responsive dealer network in the industry.
