Cotton in round bales

I am starting to see a lot of cotton in wrapped round bales
I am familiar with the modules in the foreground but the round bales are a new sight the last few years.Are they using them where you are?

I've seen cotton in round wrapped rolls for the
last 4 - 5 years in north Louisiana. I still see a
few of the big rectangular modules at picking
time.

Scott

The John Deere Furrow magazine had an add where the picker bales them.Well one is a picker and one a stripper. I have no clue the difference. Anyone care to fill us in?

I stopped and examined some of those round cotton
bales in eastern Arkansas. Bales were 7 feet high
and 6 feet wide. They were so tight you couldn't
stick your fingers in the side of the bale.

When the picker completed a bale of cotton it rolled
onto a cradle on the back of the picker and the
picker kept on picking cotton. When the picker got
to the end of the row he dropped the completed
bale and went back through the field. This was a
fascinating process to watch.

In north AL and southern middle TN probably 70% of the people left growing cotton have a roller picker. Saves a lot of time and man power. There is less loss in the rolls verses modules. There is a lot more cost up front but everyone around me that has them says as long as they are growing cotton they will never go back to a basket picker.

I saw the ad in the Furrow also. The best way I can explain the two is this. A picker tries to do just that. Pick just the cotton off of the plant and nothing else. You always have some trash in a picker but not a great deal. The stripper gathers everything off of the plant. A lot more trash in stripper cotton. When a stipper is done there is not much more than a stalk and some short branches left. That is probably not the best description but I hope it helps some.

There are some pictures I posted and others posted last year on this page of rolls feeding in the gin and being moved in the field.

A cotton picker picks individual bolls and the cotton stripper harvests plant and all. The strippers have a ginning drum on them and the cotton is seperated from the trash and the trash is discharged very similar to how a combine seperates grain from chaff. The reason pickets are traditionally used in the delta and the south in general is because the plant is not damaged and the field can be gone over a second time a few weeks after the first harvest to get the late opening bolls, this used to be the common practice but high fuel costs and low cotton prices have pretty much put an end to the practice, that is also one reason stripper pickets are starting to be used in the delta. The varieties of low growing cotton that are sometimes called stripper cotton have long been grown in the drier areas, west Texas, Arizona etc. cotton strippers have long been the machine of choice in those areas. Cotton strippers also have far fewer moving parts and are much cheaper to buy and maintain as compared to cotton pickers. In a one pass harvest system the strippers harvest considerably more cotton per acre though the newer pickers are a lot more efficient than the pickers of just 5 years ago.

Kinda sad to say I have never seen a cotton field! Did see peanuts on vacation to Alabama.

Here in SE TX haven't seen a module in the last 2-3 years, only the rolls. I have noticed the harvested fields look a lot cleaner also.

Round bales seem to be getting popular here. Still plenty of modules, but i live near cotton land and see more round bales every year.
Rx

I am working driving a module truck for a gin here in SE Arizona. Been hauling all types of cotton modules with my truck all season so far. The big rounds, the half size (Toy) modules produced by Case IH pickers and the standard big modules. Got maybe two or three weeks left yet.

(quoted from post at 12:41:17 12/04/15) A cotton picker picks individual bolls and the cotton stripper harvests plant and all.

Click to expand...

Picker picks individual locks of cotton while stripper gathers bolls with locks intact, either style cotton harvester leaves stalks & branches standing in field

They are being used in NE Arkansas but there are also a few modules around. Cotton is becoming a crop that we are seeing less grown every year. Since the picker can only be used for cotton there are a lot of farmers who can't see spending up toward $750,000 for a picker. With cotton hovering around $.60# it's just not appealing to some. It's a shame, I think a fully opened field of cotton is the prettiest crop grown.