953 nut 55,190 #1 Posted January 13 Kudos to the Corn Picker We are all accustomed to watching the humble corn picker or a combine with a corn head harvesting a crop without giving any thought to the backbreaking work it once took to accomplish this task. The modern corn picker incorporates the wisdom and ingenuity of hundreds of inventors which took several decades to develop. According to Wikipedia the corn picker is an agricultural machine used to harvest corn leaving the whole ear intact rather than shelling the kernels off like today’s GPS guided combine. The first corn picker was produced in 1909. New Idea introduced the first commercially successful corn sheller and husker in 1928. Massey Harris began manufacturing self-propelled corn pickers in 1946. Corn pickers began suffering an extreme loss in sales after a corn head was developed for combines in 1956 Over the next few days I will present some information about the origin of the components that made today’s corn harvesting machines possible. Massey-Harris engineers seemed to have a bright idea when they decided to put a motor on the corn picker and make it self-propelled. No more mounting a picker on a tractor or tying up a tractor all fall. Sometimes a good product doesn’t stay around long. It is not because there is something wrong with the product. It’s all about timing. The Massey-Harris self-propelled corn picker is a good example. By the time the company designed, tested, built and marketed it, the days of picking corn on the ear were numbered. Self-propelled combines were on the way. 9 1 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
