Picking corn like the old timers.

Have some specialty corn, known as Bloody
Butcher, that I want to save seeds from, so
got to do a first time picking for me. I
barely remember riding in the wagon as my
dad pulled a picker with a 400 Case. Took a
while to get going, must be 60 grease zirks
on it, and had to make a door for the
bottom of the elevator.

Looks like you had a fun day

You should grease NI #7 , they had 99 or a 100 on a good day. Some days they had a few less.

This post was edited by Rich'sToys on 10/24/2022 at 09:05 pm.

I was just thinking the same thing. The no. 7 has zerks everywhere you look.

I think all the old pickers were like that - my IH 1-PR has more than I can count.

Got a # 7 here.
A friend grows Bloody Butcher and makes corn meal.

The old timers in my area including me picked corn one ear at a time Banging the Boards.Yours was the new technology we moved up to a #5 Oliver picker.

They're picking my corn with a 9510 Deere combine, which is a 23-24 year old machine.

Folks that were my age when that machine is new, are in their early 70's now and could be considered "old timers."

So technically I'm "picking corn like the old timers" too, LOL.

Looks like a fun day Tom

I like the bloody butcher ,they were picking and grinding it a pioneer Steam and gas show. I got some samples to try .
I picked corn by hand with a huskier strapped to my wrist. . It was by no means easy ,hand got very cold and wet.
It was field of op Smokey dent.

They use to have contests on how fast you could pick and gust corn . I proud that I even did it.

Who are you calling an old timer? I still pick and crib all of mine.

I have picked my share of ear corn too,,but with 227 and 237's...what ever you do..DO NOT get off the tractor with the picker running..there are several old timers around here with one hand/arm missing,, and 1 with both hands missing from doing that..

That is some pretty corn! I've never seen that variety. Tim S is correct about shutting down the picker before getting off the tractor. My grandpa lost all his fingers on one hand in the 1960s. Over time he learned to do alot with his thumb that was left.

In the 1960's my dad won the national corn picking contest, but was later disqualified for getting off his tractor with the motor running. He always let it cool down.
Dad used a IH 560 with a two row mounted picker.

I still pick my corn the old way. But I guess I do it the modern way compared to you because I got a 323 new idea picker instead of that old number seven that yoou have.ha ha although mine has a ton of grease zerks on it too and it is a real PIA to grease it but like yours does it gets a job done

That opening on elevator that you are wanting to make a door for is there for a reason and you DO NOT want to closeit up. The top end of the elevator will flip anear every once in a while back down the bottom side of the elevator and the ears will lay down there untill there gets enough to plug up the elevator tha it might break up something. I do not know how the elevator is drivin on a NI but on the Oliver No. 5 theelevator is belt driven and that will male the belt slide and possibly before you catch the elevator is not working you burn up the belt.. I knowe it looks like a lot of wasted corn but that is the way ALL pickers were made to get around that elevator plugging.It will look like you are loosing a lot more corn than you actually are. If you are worried about the corn dropped out of that area take a 5 gallon bucket and just walk down between every 2 rows and pickkup the ears.. You will not find as many as you think you will. Big think would be the next year if following with a different speciaity crop you do not want any voulenterr corn in. And those grease fittings is why Dad when he bought a new picker back in mid 50's he whent with an Oliver No. 5 Picker over the new Idea that was built about 45 miles from home. Our first Picker was a GI (general Implement) Dad bought new in 1945 and traded off on the Oliverbecause the GI was made with no splines to drive the gears just a pin that after a couple of years of wear you could not keep pins in. The next year 1947 they fixed that problem.It did not have a huskin bed and a couple of years later a Husking bed was avaible to convert the snapper to a picker and Dad put it on. Over the years I had a second Oliver No. 5, a Wood brothers, a John Deere 226 mounted picker, a John Deere 227 2 row mounted picker and an Oliver73 2 row pull type picker for after we got the first corn head for the combine. and we did not need a mounted picker for opening the fields as shucking the 2 rows by hand to open fields was just way to much work. You would shuck the 2 rows and make a lile of ears every few feet and the you would come back with the wagon and pickup those piles before taking picker out so you did not drive over thse piles of corn and ruin them. Dad thought and did what you are thinking about doing blocking the elever drop out hole before he figured out what was going on. That GI picker was only designed for 60 bushel per acre of ear corn. The Oliver easily handled over twice that amount.

I was expecting to see corn picked by hand like this:
https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe20s/machines_05.htm#:~:text=Farmers%20picked%20corn%20by%20hand%2C%20using%20a%20curved,by%20horses.%20Stalk%20after%20stalk%2C%20row%20after%20row.

I guess I really am getting old.

Thanks for the information, because I am having trouble with an ear sticking now and then at the bottom of the elevator. The picker has a seed catching arrangement that shuffles it across a screen and into the bottom of the elevator. I was seeing seed on the ground which made me check and notice that an apparent door was missing. The elevator has a slip clutch which is noisy and gets your attention, but it's a hassle to shut things down and poke the ear through. It's only a 7 acre patch which, other than the ears sorted for seed, will be ground for cattle feed. At least the tractor is a pleasure to drive.

Remember all of that, opening the fields by hand picking two rows around. We pushed a 2 wheel trailer ahead of our JD H and throwing back into it as we went. Probably couldn't find anyone now who knows what a bang board is.

We have a small five-acre field of pure muck down by our pond, that is often too wet to plant in Spring and too wet to harvest in Fall. Many years we picked it by hand after the ground froze enough to hold the wagon. Dad talked about being fast enough to have an ear in the air at all times, but I was never able to come close.

The neighbor has been harvesting for us with a JD 6620 combine, and could float right over the field most years. He upgraded to a much heavier 9610, and made one round last fall, lucky to get back out. We left the rest of the corn for the deer.

This Summer, I went to brush chop the field, and saw a lot of corn still in the shucks. I borrowed a New Idea Model 310 from a neighbor to harvest the corn. It took me three days and several hundred dollars to bring the picker back from ten years of sitting in the swamp, but it picked surprisingly well. I saved about 300 bushels of ear corn to grind for the cows, and relived some good memories. Way better than hand picking!

They still do, but no one volunteered to host for Nebraska this year. Next year it will be at the museum in Holdredge.
They had a small tractor show and hay castle for the kids, flea market and lunch, the couple times it was up by Gothenburg.

As a kid dad picked corn by hand then when he got the Gleaner E in 1963 he bought a cornhead for it a couple years later. I think he was considering how to deal with the wet corn after it was shelled with the combine. In 1970 he bought a dryer and we put up a bin to store it in. Now I wish the bin was bigger. it's only about 9500 bushel.