Cotton Elementary: The Cotton Picker and Harvest

Brad and the guys have been steadily picking cotton. Blair and I have been out there a few times but not as much as last year. Blair enjoys being on the picker, but she wants to press all the buttons!

We fixed her a little seat, and it was perfect. She loves stuff her size!

This post is about the cotton picker, so I’ll get to that! Again, if you know more about the cotton picker than I do, just excuse my choice of terms. I’m only in Cotton Elementary after all!

This is the cotton picker. Brad’s picker is not one that bales cotton inside. Those are really nice, but they cost as much as a really, really nice house. This picker picks six rows at a time. Each row goes in between the little yellow triangular things. The cotton gets picked off of the plant, and it gets sucked up through the black chutes on either side of the cab and into the basket.

This is what Brad calls a head. He drives the picker so that the cotton plant goes into the head and through those metal things you see in there.

Poor thing hanging on to the window for dear life.

Each head has two cylinders that are covered in little long spiny cones. (Not the proper terminology, but hey, we’re still learning!) I just remembered… the cones are called spindles.

These are spindles. They spin around while the cylinder also turns. As the cotton goes into the picker, the bolls come in contact with the spindles, and the little spiny things catch the cotton as they are turning and pull the cotton out of the boll.

The cylinder keeps turning and the spindles pass through the yellow part you see below. Each spindle goes in between those yellow rubber pads (they’re called doffers) and the cotton is knocked off. It falls down below onto the floor of the head. (We have the side doors open, and when they are closed, the cotton is kept in there and is sucked up into the basket.)

After the cotton gets knocked off, the spindles to in between the moistening pads you see on the door (on the left part of the picture). The pads clean the spindles, leaving them slightly moist – I’m guessing this helps them pull the cotton even better.

There are actually two whole cylinders of spindles, two sets of yellow pads, and two sets of moistening pads, so the whole process happens twice per row. In other words, the cotton gets picked twice by each head. In this picture below, you can also see the reservoirs for the cleaning solution. It’s right at the top of the picture above the cleaning pads.

Above you can see both sets of spindles and both sets of moistening pads.

Below you can see the front and back spindles. And on the floor, you can see how it is worn from the cotton passing through.

After the cotton is picked,  it goes up into the black chutes on each side of the cab.

And here you can see how the chutes lead up to the big basket that holds the cotton.

The basket looks like it is covered in cobwebs – dirty cotton!

So what happens when the basket gets full? Well, the picker tells Brad with an alarm, and he turns on his flashers to signal to the guys to bring the boll buggy. He dumps the cotton into the boll buggy which transports it to the module builder.

    Brad dumping the cotton into the boll buggy.

The boll buggy goes up to the module builder. (Here it’s not completely full. I got this picture when he was moving up some so that the module builder wouldn’t overflow.)

  Into the module builder. You can see two modules behind it.

Cotton going into the module builder. It’s almost full so he has to be careful not to let it go everywhere.

The module builder has a big press that mashes the cotton down.

Someone has to operate the module builder. They can put it on automatic, but it doesn’t work as well.

When they finish a module they open the back of the module builder and pull it forward with the tractor. They put a top on the module, tag it, and the gin will come get it.

That’s about all I know about that! If you missed the other lessons, you can find them here.