As I understand it….. ( have so many photos I’m having a hard time picking out just a few 🙂 )
Cotton is not PICKED in this part of Texas—it is stripped. Which means the whole plant is picked all at once with a stripping machine. The machine works just like most combines, picking off the bolls (and the leaves and any other part of the plant) selecting the cotton and spitting out the trash…leaves, sticks and the dried boll.
The deep south the cotton picking machine only picks the ready bolls and then they come back and pick the bolls that are ripe again, doing this until all the bolls have bloomed and picked.
When the hopper gets full a cotton buggy comes and picks up the load.
This is the cotton buggy. It is not full at the time of the this photo. It will be too the top when full.
Then the cotton buggy takes the load back to the module maker.
Here the buggy is dumping into the module maker.
The module maker smashes the cotton balls into a tight fitting well pack module.
When the module maker is good and tight– a tarp is put over the top of the module to keep the cotton from blowing away and seal it off from rain. Here Terry is helping Roy, the farmer, and his helper get the tarp ready for this module.
Here is another module being covered. The module maker is pulled away and the tarp is pulled on. Pretty slick, if you ask me.
Finished! They are tying it on at this point.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about the cotton gin.
Our corn is ready for harvest. Moisture content is 14.3% so we start tomorrow.
Today we have to put in a new hot water heater as ours went out last night. 😦 Sigh.
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
That is so cool. You do such a fine job of showing us folks from far away how crops we know nothing about are harvested.
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Very interesting! Do they have a way to gather up the spillage?
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When you mentioned this yesterday, I couldn’t wait to see the pictures! So fascinating how they do that. Is the cotton oily or sticky? I am wondering how it holds together in those giant bales. Thanks for posting the pictures. Hope all goes well with your water heater. Its always something, isn’t it!
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That was a great post, Linda. We have to get a new hot water heater too, but we have the wood stove for now to be able to use for hot water.
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Yes, this is what goes on at the back of our property every year………..except this year. We were hit with such hard drought that the farmers crops did not prosper. So glad you got to visit Texas! blessings,Kathleen
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Thanks for sharing the West Texas Cotton Harvesting techniques and machines with us. It looks fascinating. I’m sorry to hear about your water heater.
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That’s so interesting to see the process. Modern machines have sure taken over a lot of dreaded drudgery such as picking cotton AND picking potatoes. Good luck with the corn harvest!
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Very cool..are the big blocks of cotton picked up and transported. to the cotton gin? Maybe that is tomorrow. Did you try and pick any cotton by hand? Great photos Linda..and explanations too:)
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How interesting, Linda… Thanks for sharing. I had no idea!! I just remember the olden days when people picked the cotton!!!!! WOW—that area is flat country down there, isn’t it?????
Hugs,
Betsy
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I think you picked the perfect amount of photos. Thanks for sharing this process….fascinating!
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Very interesting! So, what are the negatives to the way they harvest cotton here instead of like they do in the South? Is it any worse for the land?
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Very interesting……..I’ve always wondered how cotton was harvested. Great photos.
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Enjoyed your cotton picking pictures! Yay for the corn being ready!!
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So cool to see how it’s harvested, thanks!
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WooHOO!!!Congratulations on getting that corn in before Thanksgiving. Not at all like last year.
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Thank you for sharing the process of how we harvest cotton down here in West Texas. I’m going to correct a few of your terminology. The hopper the cotton goes into in the stripper is called a basket, the cotton buggy is called a boll buggy, and the module maker is called a module builder. Other than that great job.
Oregon Sunshine the difference between the two is the varieties. Stripper varieties have a shorter fiber and are a lower quality, where as the picker varieties have a longer fiber and is a much higher quality. The reason why we use stripper varieties down here is because of the wind. Stripper varieties the boll will not open up all the way so it stays in the boll when the wind blows. Where as picker varieties will string out when the wind blows and you will lose your yield.
Meg the cotton is neither oily or sticky. It sticks together in the module by being packed in very tight.
Sharon Tally yes we do have a way of picking up the spillage. If its a lot like the amount in picture we will either have the guy running the module builder throw it in the module builder with pitchforks or have a vacuum hose to suck it up and blow it in the module builder. But most of the time its a guy with a pitchfork.
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