I am relatively new to the forum. I am curious to know the maximum and typical acres sizes that are considered feasible for using a corn picker. For those using corn pickers today, is it more of a hobby/nostalgic activity, or are some operators using the picker in a serious way. I have heard that you can harvest about 25 acres a day. It seems like it would make since to have a pull-type unit to add some flexibility relative to feed for cattle and hogs. I have read where the cobs can be good roughage for cattle.
I rent my ground out, and do not actively farm, so please give me a little slack for the limited knowledge.
Growing up on a 28 cow dairy farm, my dad planted about 45+/- acres of corn per year. We had, still have, a mounted New Idea row row corn picker. We were able to fill three 1000 bushel round wire corn cribs and a snow fence crib to use to grind the feed for the cows and heifers. Our vet was always a big proponent of ear corn because you were using whole cob as it was better for digestion in animals. I think there are many variables that go into how many acres a day you can pick--weather, the stand of corn, distance to/from the cribs, how many wagons you have, how much help you have to run wagons to and from the field, etc... I know harvest went much faster for my dad when I was old enough to haul wagons back and forth for him while he picked. In fact he bought another wagon so we could have one on the picker and while one was being unloaded. On our best days when our morning chores were done, the sun was shining, fields were opened, after greasing the picker, gassing the tractors, we could fill 650-750 bushels of corn.
Today, we rent out our farm to the local dairy farmer. He has recently bought a new 8 row 38" Kinzie planter. I still go out and pick with a mounted picker to have a little farmer time. I do have a sheller attachment for the picker as well as a MM sheller so another guy with a mounted picker comes down to pick too. We might have four pickers running next fall!
Ear picking is very regional today across the country. There are still some farms out there where it is the staple harvest method, but that is hard to find. I know when my dad retired from farming in the 1990s, he was one of two ear corn pickers left in the area. The other is still picking today. I know a growing number of cattleman who are getting back into ear picking because of the better quality of feed. There was a posting from a guy in Canada-??near the northeast US??- where ear corn picking is still quite popular-VERY LARGE cribs.
I hope others on the forum will add the knowledge and ideas of ear picking today.
In one of the DVDs that I have from the 2-Cylinder club, of the old promotional films that were shown at JD days, this one being from 1941, or 1942, they show a farmer in Minnesota who had picked 100,000 bushels that year with his Model 226 picker mounted on an unstlyed JD 'A'
During the late 1950's, and up until they quit picking ear corn, my two uncles would pick 350-400 acres per year, which was stored in their 17 X 20 foot Behlen wire cribs, and the regular wood cribs. They had JD 227 and 237 pickers, except for the last year when Harold used a JD 300 Husker.
My Dad would pick 85-100 acres per year starting with a JD 226 mounted on his 1937 JD 'A', and ending with his 227 mounted on a 1950 JD 'A'. I have the operators manual which is from 1941, which he wrote on it "Our first NEW corn picker", this being from the time when he farmed with his brothers in Sarpy, County, Nebraska, and 11 years before he moved to eastern Monona County, Iowa.
My Dad bought a LETZ 50X grinder because of the quality of the ground corn, either ear, or shelled, and how it would shred the shucks as the ear corn went thru the plates. I believe his steers that topped the Omaha market one day in 1959 were fed corn ground with this grinder.
-- Edited by Art From De Leon on Thursday 28th of November 2013 08:27:22 PM
My father and brother still pick corn in northern Illinois -- about 5,000 bushels per year. They have a hog farm and feed the ear corn to the hogs. There are a couple of other farmers in the area that also fill a crib in addition to combining -- makes for some cheap storage and no need to spend money on drying costs.
We put up about 16-20000 bushels a year for our dairy herd. Corn cobs serve as a buffer for the rumen aiding in digestion and protecting against things like milk fever and ketosis. Many dairies feed chopped straw to serve the same purpose. Our goal when we are picking is 1000 bushels picked and cribbed in 5 hours with two men. Some days we dont even come close, but one day this fall we did 2300 bushels in 5 hours. We were whipped. We pick with a 4 row Uni harvester and 100 bushel gravity wagons.
We put up about 16-20000 bushels a year for our dairy herd. Corn cobs serve as a buffer for the rumen aiding in digestion and protecting against things like milk fever and ketosis. Many dairies feed chopped straw to serve the same purpose. Our goal when we are picking is 1000 bushels picked and cribbed in 5 hours with two men. Some days we dont even come close, but one day this fall we did 2300 bushels in 5 hours. We were whipped. We pick with a 4 row Uni harvester and 100 bushel gravity wagons.
Ah, I keep forgetting about grinder mixers. Did they use a hammermill, or plates to process the grain? I assume the early ones used were a hammermill, as I seem to remember seeing some makes with a dust collector cone on them, as well as seeing the literature showing the various screens available, but did the later ones have a plate type grinder?
I cannot see how a roller mill could process ear corn, but perhaps that was another possibility. (I think a few visits to ebay for grinder-mixer literature are in order)
We still ear pick about 10-20 acres per year of Pop's ~60 acres of corn (combine the rest of Pop's, plus all of mine every other year). We use an NI 324/327 pulled by an AC D17SerIV (loaded rear tires) on a southwest Iowa hillside farm. We haul it in with a couple of box wagons (Heider, JD, other misc. brands). We use a couple of Kewanee elevators and a Kewanee corn drag to move it around, and usually fill 1 or 2 squirrel cages a year. With very few breakdowns, we usually fill a squirrel cage in 2 or 3 days. They are part days, though, working around my work schedule. We grind it for cattle feed with a Farmhand grinder/mixer (hammermill). Hard to argue the quality of the feed, but it is more work. We usually get a premium for our beef, which makes it worth the work.
Long harvest season this year, haven't checked in here for over a month. Ear corn in this year's first squirrel cage was around 23%, but it gets good exposure to the wind and we cleaned out the tunnel right away for more air movement underneath. The second crib was loaded with 20%--better.
A larger-scale local cattle feeder has modified an older combine in some fashion that basically grinds ear corn to go directly into a pit. It is not a silage chopper. The ground product is drier than earlage, if I understand it correctly, but I do not know much more about his operation. Another neighbor still uses a Uni for ear corn and grinds it with a hammermill hooked up to a WD45. It is not a grinder/mixer, but sort of a semi-stationary unit. Cattle feed, again.
We do not see many other serious corn pickers around us. Then again, many farmers in our area have grown bigger and more specialized, either to row-crops only or into feedlots that raise some of their own corn or silage. Many fences have been torn out, pastures planted to row crop, and very few folks raise calves from birth to fat. Most of the feedlots get feeders from western Nebraska or thereabouts. There are some cow/calf operations around us, though--enough to keep a couple of large animal vets in business, anyway. Almost no hogs left in the area, other than a few very small direct-sell operations. Same for poultry, mostly small hobby operations that sell a few dozen eggs or direct-sell meat.
We start our calves after weaning on half ground ear corn/half whole oats. We taper that to all ground ear corn, then taper again to half ground ear corn/half shell corn. Pasture until the last 6 months, then free choice hay to finish. Salt and water, no hormones. Antibiotics only for treatment of illness/injury. We bucket feed all of our cattle from wean to fat.
When I moved back home, I set out to replace our worn-out mounted NI picker with some less-used pull-types. I ended up with four (yes, 4) NI 324/327 units, all in working condition, for a grand total of $1,800. 3 of those 4 pickers have seen very little use, so breakdowns are usually pretty minor, but we probably grease and oil them more than necessary. The last picker showed up in my farmyard before I got home from work one day. The prior owner delivered it 75 miles one-way. He heard I was running an orphanage for wayward cornpickers, and wanted to keep it from the scrappers. That should give you an idea of how much demand there is for corn pickers in western Iowa. Good for us (temporarily), bad for the long-term prospects of corn picking.
Rural Treynor. Are you up by Cherokee? I have an uncle (in-law, technically, but a good egg nonetheless) from up there, name of Pedersen. I procured all 4 cornpickers at the Denison consignment auction.
