Developing Mechanized Cotton Harvesting

Contributed by Kristi Krueger

A folder of papers, reports and research on cotton mechanization from the NC State Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering contains an interesting publication on this subject.  The document is a 1965 bulletin produced cooperatively between the USDA and Agricultural Extension Stations from multiple states, including North Carolina.  In the introduction, the bulletin notes that the amount of cotton harvested mechanically in the U.S. jumped from 22% to 72% between 1953 and 1963.  This 50% change in just ten years helps show how significant this time period was for agriculture in the U.S.

The bulletin goes on to explain that there was still room for improvement in the harvesting process, and it describes some of the research conducted with mechanical cotton pickers (these remove just the mature, fluffy cotton bolls) and strippers (as implied, these machines remove everything from the plant stem).  For an illustration of the difference, look at these photos of fields in the wake of a picker and a stripper .

More details on research with these technologies and photos are included in the bulletin. Additional documents on research with cotton mechanization are available from the Cultivating a Revolution Project .