Green vs Red

The guests today had the unique opportunity to a hear harvesting technology panel discussion. In this panel, the benefits of the new on board module building on the Case IH and John Deere pickers were explored from two different perspectives.

One perspective came from Kenneth Hood, an accomplished cotton producer and ginner from Gunnison Mississippi. Kenneth has been farming in the Mississippi Delta for close to 50 years. Hood has held many leadership positions in the cotton industry and is very awarded. Hood also had a hand in the development of the new Case IH harvester. Needless to say he offers the Case IH perspective.The John Deere perspective comes from Charles Parker, an experienced cotton producer and ginner from Senath, Missouri. Parker is president of Parker and Jones Farms and is vice president of the Farmers Union Gin Company. In addition to that he has held numerous leadership in the cotton community.

Guest were able to get a look at both company's new innovations. What they found was that both systems are very similar in terms of the yield monitors, the onboard cameras with TV screen to visually see the cotton, the lighting system to gage how full the system is and the one button unloading system which allows very simple unloading of the cargo. They also found that both systems increase production by about 25% and significantly reduce labor. Getting to each picker specifically, Parker found that with the new John Deere picker there was not as much loss of cotton before it gets to the gin. He also found that the moisture is more consistent throughout the picker. Hood stated that the Case IH picker does not weigh any more than a conventional picker and it can vary the size of the bale module.

Overall it seems that both of these new technologies are very competitive and offer great advantages to the producer.