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West Texas | I don't know about the cost of running one vs the other.
I do know that there is no way a stripper gets more cotton then a picker. Volume maybe yes, but the stripper gets all the junk cotton that causes the grades to go down. A picker leaves that junk in the field. Thus higher grades and better turnouts. (seen as high as 40) Also, we can pick a 122 acre circle of cotton in about 14 hrs. Try that with a stripper.
As for spindles, we put new ones in ours last year, this made the second season with them.
We will take the bottom half out and put them on top, then put the top half on the bottom and get 1 or 2 more seasons out of them. I think it cost just over $27000 to replace all spindles. Doffers have to be ground off before you start each season and replaced if necessary. Not sure what the cost is on that, we get them out and I take them to the dealer to grind/replace. Moisture pads may need replaced, at least we had to replace a bunch of them after buying the used picker. We've not had to replace hardly any since that first year though.
We picked a little over a 1000 acres this year. Should have been more but lost some to hail etc.
Don't think I would believe deere as to 1 stripper baler replacing 2 regular strippers. But I've not seen their stripper baler run, just heard stories. If it can harvest at the same speed as a picker, then yes. But that's doing right at 5 mph.
Some of our cotton only got hit with a qt of Boll buster this year, some we added 1 oz Sharpen or Aim. The stuff we knew we would strip all had a second spray with Gramoxone. | |
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Cotton stripper versus cotton picker
