Sweet Corn Picker

[bigbobva]

I tried a small patch of corn last year and it did amazing. I am going to plant 6-10 acres this year. I already picked up and fixed up an Allis-Chalmers 600 with 70 series planters. I was amazed Agco still had parts. Now I am curious on the 2nd part... How to pick it? I have seen the new idea pickers like the 323 but it seem they are mostly for feed corn. What do folks recommend for sweet corn to harvest it? Can you harvest sweet corn with a 323? Curious if I need to save up for a mini combine...

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Are you going to let the sweet corn dry and harden on the stalk?
If so then have at the combine.

Most pickers are meant for dry corn and will beat up the ears of soft corn so bad that they will be worthless, unless your trying to get cream corn.

If you want to pick it wet, sweet and fresh, doing it by hand is about your only economical production option.

With 10 acres of sweet corn, take your vitamins!

 

[CaveCreekRay]

Yeah... What Sean said.

Ahhhh... Sweet corn in the Fall!

I remember in high school, our farmer buddy up in northern IL used to throw a picnic in the Fall. They'd boil water in a steam tractor to cook the sweet corn in big galvanized livestock troughs and invite all the neighbors. Everyone would bring a dish plus he'd have hot grilles going to cook on.

The field he grew this stuff in was off the end of the runway at his farm. A 14-year old kid who was soloing in the cub glider got low and didn't think he could cross the phone lines on the road and ducked under the lines, but then couldn't make the runway. He sat down in the corn and the plane stayed on top of the corn stalks -10 feet in the air. They had to cut down the stalks to get the plane down but when they did, they saw the heavy corn ears had beat the leading edge of the wing, denting it pretty bad. It went in for an overhaul.

As I remember, Clarence used a huge J.D. machine to harvest that corn. It would litter the field behind the combine with the dust of the stalks, which he would later disc back into the soil. What a great time of year...

Good luck with the home-grown corn!

Ray

 

[skeets]

We hand picked all the sweet corn, started friday afternoon when we got home from school and then saturday morning, load the truck up and off we went doing the huckster thing in the then newly built housing plans. We always gave out a bakers dozen of corn, them old gals thought that was so nice.
Then Uncle John would use an old case picker for the field corn it left a lot on the ground and stocks all over,, that made it super good for pheasants and the pickins was good we did shoot ever bird we kicked up but it got to the point that we took turns, and only shot at a bunny when there was nothing else going on. But I doubt if kids today would hand pick corn, hell I doubt most of them wouldnt even know what to do with a wabbit,, OK Im done need more coffee

 

[bigbobva]

Thanks guys... I have 3 little kids so that will be my labor! Picnic with steamed corn at the end sounds good.

 

[bcbull378]

When I was in high school many years ago my father would give my brother and I 5 acres to plant sweet corn on . We would plant a quarter of the ground at a time 2 weeks apart so it wouldn't all come off at once. My brother and I would get up 4:30 am and pick 150 to 200 dozen and sale it at a road side stand for .75 cents a dozen as kids we were rolling in cash. Now that I'm a father and grandfather I know my father wasn't just helping us make a little cash he was teaching us work ethics and what responsibility was all about thanks dad. Now I'm planting that same ground with my granddaughters .

 

[Diydave]

Remember to stagger the plantings of corn, and use different varieties of corn, to keep the corn from maturing all at the same time. THere are sweet corn pickers out there, but as others have said, unless you have more acreage, and a contract with someone to buy your corn, a picker won't pay for itself. I can't tell you how much I have picked, as a kid. A finger and a thumb at the top of the ear, to feel if the ear is filled out, bend downward, twist and snap, and chuck it and the next one in the feed sack you are dragging behind you...

https://youtu.be/tWsjl7aDU10

 

[Ike]

They do make a sweet corn picker. It is a pull behind and picks the ears off onto a conveyer. They had 2 of them in the muck fields where I use to live. I think they would be costly for the small acreage you will have

 

[nickelplated5s]

This is where you look for a neighbor with a picker.