North Louisiana Scenes (crops)

Just some photos of crops from our area in north Louisiana. 1. Sweet taters 2. Soybeans 3. Corn 4. Bayou Macon. Just thrown in. (no pun intended) 5. Corn test plot. 6. CRP with turbo Ag Cat. 7. Cotton. Not much of it around here anymore. 8. Obvious. 9. We call these "cows".

Nice scenes! We used to have so much cotton that every little town of a few hundred had a gin or two, but nearly all gins are gone & see little cotton anymore.

With the price of cotton it's a wonder anyone grows that stuff anymore.
Almost all the cotton grown in the U.S. is exported to China anyway.

This year has been a rough cotton planting year for some.
Bottom Line Cotton Planting

Man O man, have times changed. When I was growing up the cotton fields were full of "hands" picking. Then it was all loaded on a trailer and off to the gin and then separated from the seed and then baled in 500# beautifully packaged bales (that some prissy inspector would help himself in whacking it open and pulling some out, like he was somebody, making a big mess). Still have the storage sheds along the railroad tracks (long gone) where they used to ship it. This black clay WAS cotton country for a hundred years or so due to it's water holding capability. It's now a "ghost town" with relics all over, like cisterns where folks used to live....no ground water available for he average person, roads that don't exist any longer but the Bois De Arc fence posts are still here.

Never saw that baler, but wouldn't be surprised if it contained a stripper too such that the bale was ready to market; a one step operation. Can't imagine what all that costs with the GPS and sensors and all. Seems the operator (owner) has plenty to keep him busy. Mighty fine looking bale.

I toured the JD picker plant in Iowa one time on a business trip (during my off time; not business related). Got a 1 person guided tour (just for answering yes to the question "would you like to tour our facility sir"). Very interesting. Got to understand what "forged" means when manufacturing parts. Passed by the table where they cut the groves in the strippers. 3 groves, 120 degrees apart, one rotating tray, two employees of 30 and 35 years with the company, doing just that, one on each side of the table turning them the 120 degrees for the next cut. I asked why that task wasn't mechanized. One's reply was that no one had come up with a machine that would do what they did. Okayeeeeeee. That was back in the '90's.

Nice pics I like to see how things are done in other parts of the country.

Nice looking crops - but where are the hills? :roll:

Nice pics. I spent the summer of 1970 down there in central La at Fort Polk.(not by choice) but liked the area. All pines/sand just like northern MI where I came from. I wasn't given much time to meander north where you are. One weekend we actually had off, went with buddy up to Arkansas to his home but don't really remember the farm land.