what to use for sweet corn picker?

Thinking I would like to grow an acre of sweet corn for fun. Not wanting to harvest by hand. The product would be creamed corn, so the machine can damage the ear, don't care. Don't want it to destroy the ear, but because the corn would be cut off, does not have to be a beautiful presentable ear at a roadside stand. Though if any nice ears make it through, then they can be selected and sold as such. Are there any old standard corn pickers that are decent at this task? Mounted or pull type, does not matter to me.

You won't want one with a husking bed,that's for sure. The old one row Allis Chalmers snappers might be the best bet. I was thinking those used stripper rolls instead of snapping rolls anyway. I just don't know how well green ears would go through from the strippers to the elevator though.

Do you know model numbers for those old allis chalmers units so I could search craigslist for them?

strange looking getup, not sure how this would fit a tractor.
picker header on craiglist

Were corn snappers used for sweet corn? They are a corn picker without husking rolls.

Worst case you could modify a corn picker into a snapper by removing or disconnecting the husking rollers in a corn picker and making a sheet metal cover to fill the hole or cover the rollers.

Would a picker with stripper plates (IH 234, JD 300) leave nicer ears than one with snapping rollers?

That is why everyone I know that raises sweet corn has 10 kids.

Moderately popular rigs are the old pull type Oliver one row pickers- supposed to be easy to bypass the husking bed. JD227 can be modified also- but takes a couple hours to mount it. Woods Brother 1 or 2 row as picker only for sweet corn, seed corn or old just pick and put in crib with husks on- brother had a Woods rig without husking for the ground feed for mothers cows. Price varies, Amish implement dealers might have something available right away and Uni system rigs can be set up with no husking bed- what I was working with for seed corn harvest some years back, the rigs had been doing sweet corn before the seed corn ready. RN

Use raccoons...they do a good job about 2 days before it is ready...LOL

This summer it was raining corn from the trees. The squirrels wait until it is just ripe, and they make the entire corn patch shake and tremble and they scurry into the trees arms laden, and it literally rains sweet corn. I have read that they eat garden vegetables for the moisture content, not that I put dog bowls of water out there for the squirrels, cause I am not buying it. It tastes good. Did think about caging the patch and putting a few really big dogs in there for the last couple days. Wolves may be my only hope.

raized it for several years. Its a hand pick job when its ready the stocks are too green to go thru an old corn picker. Good luck

The IH snapper that mounted on out H was designed to pick sweet corn. We used it to pick our field corn as we ground the ears and husks for feedling cattle.

might start looking around in your area to determine what pull type corn pickers, of any brand in serviceable condition, are still available. most one row pickers were New Idea and John Deere. Remember replacement parts is an important consideration in buying an old piece of farm equipment.

Not trying to be a smart:
as a second option, you might check with the local football track coach.

he might set you up with the names of a number of young boys and girls that might be interested in making some extra money hand picking your crop.

provide plenty of soft drinks/snacks, mount a radio on the tractor, so they can get down to the music while working. A few hard working kids could have one acre of corn picked before you know what happened.

leave a few open rows across the field so the wagon can be pulled between the other rows as they plant tobacco. you need to do this anyway with a one row picker, otherwise you knock down one or two rows trying to open up a land.

believe me, I know all about hand picking corn and no open rows were left, that down row was for young bucks like me to pick, not fun. But no use to complain.

hand picked ears would save a lot of damaged ears
good luck,

coons and deer help me pick my sweet corn every year. field corn planted next to my sweet corn and they will not touch it.

Find an 83H Oliver picker. They had knife rollers and stripping plates just like a combine corn head. I have picked sweet corn with one before and it worked pretty good!

The first AC two row mounted pickers were for a WC, and they had no model number. Then came the #33, popular with the WD. Both were mounted under the axle. Later ones for the D series (and I believe WD) went over the axle.

The one row pull-type picker was actually a snapper, and advertised as such. Didn"t matter- the mounted ones didn"t husk well anyway!

Only one acre? pick it by hand.I would think by the time you get the machine workingAnd then try to get it to do something it wasnt designed to do,you could have your crop picked,canned and stored......We have a HUGE sweet corn industry here.1000s of acres of 'OlatheSweet' sweet corn.Every acre is picked by HAND.

You need a picker that has " deck plates " ,or a "snapper bar" above the rolls. That was how F M C and other companys made them in the late 40 s and the 1950 s Their 2 row mounted pickers would fit , Oliver, Farmall, A-C , M H , M-M and other tractors.
Picking sweet corn with regular rolls , the soft ear will be squeezed and go thru the rolls onto the dirt.
I think " Byron " is a major builder of sweet corn harvestors now. clint

What about the pull type Woods Bros corn picker that had the rotary snapping bar that was supposed to be like picking it by hand? I wonder how it would work in sweet corn.

If you do four staggered plantins, so it is not all ripe at the same time, you are talking 1/4 acre to pick every two weeks.

Just read a news blip about a los Angles supermarket busted for selling bagged and frozen raccoons for 9.99/lb. Guess they are a Chinese delicacy. maybe better to feed the corn to the raccoons and then sell them.

Been around pickers all my life. Don't think any make were produced with the bars like the combine heads use to snap of the ears, Now some of the later 2 row & 3 row units that used a combine corn head could have the snapping plates, only rolls to snap the ears and the rolls will mash the but ends of the ears in trying to pull anything that fresh through. Snapping plates not as bad but will still do major dammage to ear. Do it all by hand as by the time you could get a single row setup up to do a halfway job and loose half of yout crop you could be done harvesting it. I have friends that harvest 10-20 acres of field corn every year all by hand. Mounted picker takes 2 days to mount and a day to dismount. And New Idea MIGHT be only model picker you can still get parts for and I understand they are hard to come by. I had 2 Oliver single row, an Oliver 2 row pull, and 2 Deere mounted pickers and still have a Wood Broths, and the first picker was a 1 row GI (General Implement) Dad bought new in 1946 that was only a snapper and that was the last year that they used a pin only thru all gears to do the driving and was all the time shearing those pins, next year they were made for a key as well as the pin to take care of that problem. About 2 years after he bought that picker there was an aftermarket husking bed came on the market and Dad bough and installed it as soon as avaible. Traded that picker off in about 1953 as it was so worn out from all those pins shearing you could not keep it in the feild. Was traded in on an Oliver No. 5, Dad bought it because of the number of grease fittings compaired to New Idea. Both New Idea and GI were built here in this section of Ohio. Was not designed correctly on the drive for the husk auger and always had problems keeping a chain on. The sprocket on the auger was set on an angle to what the chain needed and would keep throwing chain off. If would have the tools now have could have modified that to fix that problem. Next Oliver 1 row was same but bought it for $35 at auction and picked possibly a half dozen loads one year to sell to neighbor. Couple of years later sold it for 7 times what I had paid for it. None of these pickers would harvest a smaller more imature ear of corn and that is what most varieties of sweet corn would be like compaired to field corn. In any way before you could get any picker working you could have that acre picked by hand and actually have a saleable crop.

Sweet corn ears are generaly small enough they would go directly through between the rolls no mater how close you could set them. Have a Grey Wood bros now that I did pick a couple of loads with but bought it as it was what was sold new for the tractors I have, 41 9N & 44 2N Fords. Had it to a show a couple of times hooked to a tractor.

Some varieties are meant to be machine harvested, and the ears snap off better. But with a couple helpers, it is no big deal to harvest by hand. Just have a trailer along side to dump your buckets into. I grow 10-12 acres for roadside stand and farm markets, and pick 50--100 dozen every morning, often by myself with my daughter driving the tractor and trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVq6AmTJ52I&sns=em

if you can open this old Farmall IH equipment film, it shows on one picture a Farmall with two row corn picker, what appears to be picking sweet corn

the corn stalks and ears are green.

I tried to copy only the picture, but my computer skills are limited.

hope it will open for you. but it did look like the wagon was full of green ear corn

Good video Wellmax99

Dumb question:

How many bushels of ears with husks would an acre of sweet corn produce, maybe 100 bushels of ears max?

Carrying around a bag or bucket of ears sounds like a lot more work than simple tossing them directly onto a hay rack or a pickup box.

I leave a empty row every 4 rows. just hook the simplicity GT to A dump trailer and let it idle in low down the empty row. with a good corn knife I can do two row at a time and toss directly in the trailer. down the rows and back a 17 bushel trailer full. that's about all that I care to process at any one time any way. One of the neighbors plants 20 acres every year 4 rows skip 2 4 more staggers the planting two weeks apart. its all hand picked. the hired hands pick pickups full in now time. If you leave empty rows and you don't have to carry it hand picking goes fast.I don't know how much corn you'll want but I only plant 8 rows 50 ft long. I have froze 10 dozen ears on the cob and 20 quarts cut off. still gave away many bags of ears. when I was a kid we planted a couple acres for feed and hand picked it.

if any of you could not open the film try this

FARMING IN THE 1950S AND 60S WITH IH

Try to find a snapper that is a picker with no busking bed. They were available in about every brand back in the day. Works great on sweet corn