Corn Picking & Plowing in Iowa 

On the farm I was raised on corn was picked even after a corn header was purchased and used to harvest corn. The ear corn was ground using a hammer mill, belt powered by a WD-45 to top the sileage fed to cattle. Shelled corn was also ground on the hammer mill for feeding hogs. The corn picker was a two row Farmall mounted on an M. A WD-45 with a 3 bottom plow was used to plow with until about 1958 when a D-17 with a semi mounted 4 bottom plow did most of the work. One Farmall corn picker I used had taken off one man's fingers and another's hand. People would leave the snapping rolls engaged and try to untangle what ever was causing the problem. There were warning on the machine no to but you can't guard against people who disregard them.

Never get tired of watching your videos, especially the “classic” equipment. Thank u BTP!

My dad was an Oliver dealer. All these videos bring back so many memories. We also had a farm.

man you did it again l was born in 51 so l was very young when my dad used a wd and 33 picker he bought the picker new and bought the wd used he ran that tractor till he retied in 64!!! he bought a country general store andi farmed a 160 acres that we rented l was about 13 dad did plantind and we hired the cropsharvested neighbor boughtv a new 101 IH combine with to row corn head and started it in our corn oliver and JDs in latter years where hired old combines had no float bar or header control in early years when l got older we bought a 66 AC pull type combine l pull with my WD45 l bought when l was a senior in high school!! later l bought a C GLEANER AND ran gleaner the rest of my farmer career!! sorry to ramble but growing up and farming in the 50 60 70 was the best for a young man!! great job and l will be wachin!!!

I wish I had the time to play with my tractors & implements. Good job!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROGRAMING/VARIETY .... AG HISTORY THAT IS THE FOUNDATION FOR TODAY'S EQUIPMENT....

Love seeing the old iron at work. I'm currently working on restoring a Case 300 just like the one in your video which was my great Uncles and then my uncle's . Thank you for sharing

Love the old orange allis and corn picker. My grandpa would tell stories about all his allis equipment he used before he sold his farm.

I just love watching old equipment still out in fields getting work done and making farmers money..unreal.. so frickin cool to me!🔥🔥🔥

It’s called a corn picker not a corn harvester and the old girl is doing a damn good job ! Take note boys this is how it used to be , it’s good to see the old equipment still getting it done !🌽🌽🌽

Great video! Love seeing all the old farm equipment working. Brings back a lot of memories! Thanks for sharing! Have a great and awesome day!

My Dad started farming in the 70s using a 2 row picker mounted on front of a Farmall 560. Had 2 rear attachments. One for ear corn and the other for shelled. Hauled corn to the elevator with a Ford 4000.

146,000 WDs made? I swear half of them were in my area. Couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting one. But they were decent little tractors. It seemed like every old farmer had a WD and a Farmall (C, H, or M). Good video Jason.

It mit be a small corn picker but it's got a lot of heart I tell ya a lot heart... 😆👍👍

The old corn pullers I remember.

That's awesome seeing modern day equipment working next to older style equipment. Things have really changed over the years. Thank you for sharing love your work. Keep it up buddy

Sir outstanding sir

Hi Jason love watching the old machines working keep them coming S

I really enjoyed watching this video. I'm a member of a vintage tractor and machinery club in Westlock Alberta Alberta Canada. I do some ploughing with my fordson dexta. Didn't do any this year Because of covid. Never get tired of working the vintage machinery

Like the old machines. It's good to see some people still use them today.

What a great find! So rare, thank you!!!!

The row-crop tractor type of whatever brand and model was set up to meet the methods of row crop planting of primarily corn and soybeans. Early 1900 to 1950 corn was planted in 40- to 44-inch row spacing. The row spacing was limited by the width of the horse used for field work ending in the 1930's. This row width afforded "cross checking" cultivation for weed control in lieu of herbicides not yet available. The row crop tractors were set up to allow two rows to pass under the tractor with the narrow front wheels tracking the middle of the row. The 1960s saw the introduction of chemicals for weed control and that led to row width narrowing from 38 to 40 inches toward a new suggested optimum of 30 inches. As for tillage, the methods employed varied by weather and climate conditions. Spring plowing was done at lower latitudes where time permitted plow tillage prior to the planting of longer maturity hybrid corn (usually >105 days). Fall plowing was done at more northern latitudes to get field tillage work done then to be ready for a busy spring planting period defined by the maximum maturity hybrid corn possible (but often < 105 days).

That John Deere with the discs was storming along!

Corn pickers are interesting machines👍😁 the classics are always great to see😉👍

Old iron Love it from oklahoma 🇺🇸

Gotta love Iowa Farming!

Great video! Brings back many fond memories of picking ear corn.thanks btp!

What a fabulously made video Really enjoyed watching thanks Respect and support from the UK

Jason.....BTP!!!💪💪👍👍

Yeah we use to do that. It was interesting to do but it was worth that

That plow is doing a fine job of rolling all that trash under! We had a "field cultivator" just like that when I grew up. I never saw it in action, it was beyond worn out haha, not just the teeth, but the springs were broken, the wheel bearings were even bad. We had a similar vintage Oliver one we used occasionally. We called them "quack pullers" up here in WI, commonly pulled around when getting ready to rotate a hay field back into corn, the spring teeth did a good job of busting up root balls and it was useful for breaking up any small manure piles that were maybe a tad too big, which prevented wheel slippage when plowing. Sounds like overkill maybe, but turning over a 3-7 year old alfalfa stand to rotate to corn is the hardest thing you can do to a tractor and plow, and cruising around for about an hour per 10 acres with a quack puller smoothed out the plowing job. I had some thoughts about the corn picker vs the behemoth combine..... suffice to say modern tech is good and all, but something got lost when you used to sit right amongst the crop and could turn your head and see it going up into a wagon 3 feet from where your butt was parked compared to sitting in the silenced, AC, radio mega combine. IMO our farms have gotten a tad too factory for my tastes.

Great to directly see the contrast between generations of machines! I think the husking bed couldn't handle 2 rows worth of today's yields - it appeared to be struggling to get husks removed from a single row. But it appeared to be tuned up well to harvest!

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Case 400 was my favorite tractor growing up. That's pretty rare to find wrap around weight for that case 400.

Great video! That soil is fertile (i can tell that just by looking at it) compared with what i havo to deal with back home.

We picked ear corn well into the 90s. I remember my 971 Ford with a 2 row picker. Then we went big time with a new idea uni.

We still do both pick and plow in the fall... great video!

We still moldboard plow. We farm down in Arizona though so we have to to have furrows to water our crop. Our farm is quite small compared to these other ones. Our largest tractor is a Case MX 200

Old School....!!!

Now this is farming in my generation.

My grandfather had a M&M uni harvester. That was a neat old machine. Wish I had it today.

Nice to see the old iron and in such nice shape!

I don't think that picker could take in two rows of that corn at once. Much higher yields today.

We still pick ear corn and moldboard plow. We grind the ear corn for our cows and fat calves. It makes really good feed and the calves seem to really grow on it. Proud Iowa farmer (Laporte City). 👍

Dad bought an Allis WD new in 1953 and a Allis 33 mounted corn picker. The WD ran on farm until farm sold in 1985

This was an awesome video. Definitely shows the advancement of agriculture in the last 60 years in the USA. I’ve never seen a corn picker in person but have seen moldboard plowing being done. Down in the South, after cotton is harvested there are stalk choppers connected to the tractors that chew up the cotton stalks and I think the field is harrowed. Some use those large PTO mowers to do the same job on the cotton stalks.

The last time we picked corn on our farm in western Maryland was with one of our 1950s era Super Cs and I think it was a New Idea picker. It was the early 90s and we did it because my grandfather wanted to keep a variety of corn that Pioneer was discontinuing. It was the 1st time that they had picked any corn in at least 15 years. It was a fun experience to use the hay elevator to fill the corn crib, which was something that I never had memories of them doing. Man has farming changed. This video was an excellent trip though over a half century of state of the art farm equipment.

The farm i worked on had a Farmall M and a mounted picker 36 inch rows

That JD 4760 is a beaut Clark

There is a lot more corn in that single row today than there was in 2 rows when that picker was designed.

Yeah I am enjoying your big tractor power videos we farm in Western Pennsylvania we pick about 3/4 of our corn crop using a new idea 324 picker behind a Mccormick CX 95 tractor we haul in with a 460 Farmall and a one of a pair of super h's we have here we do not fall till but we go back in with either a Case IH 385 and a 6 ft rotary mower or one of the super h s and a 16a John Deere flail chopper and then we follow that with either our Farmall 75 c which is the newest of our fleet and a 10-ft woods disc and we either pull that with the 75-c or the cx-95 you want to take some pictures next year look me up and we'll see if we can arrange something

Amazing sir

TY for explaining why picking only 1 row; yes I had that figured out. TRIVIA: why 40" rows? Back in the day, horses butt was ~ 40". Great Vid!!!

I live on an Iowa farm!

We had an IH 2MH picker mounted on a Farmall M.

Thats the way i used to do it,,, farmall m and 2 row picker

It was a simpler time.

So the old corn picker does take most of the husks off of the ears. This leaves the cobs left to have the kernels removed with a belt driven Kernel remover.

Cool stuff. What a contrast in harvesters. I just wish more farmers would take up no-till farming. I don’t think they realize how much topsoil is lost to erosion, and how much damage they cause to the soil by tilling, destroying billions of beneficial soil microbes and bacteria, making it less productive each year and requiring more and more fertilizer to grow the same amount of corn. Now, topsoil is nowhere near as thick as it was years ago, because of years of tilling and erosion.

Dad had a john deere two row mounted on an A john deere

We have a 4020 wheatland never been restored got it in oklahoma now lives in East central indiana

you don't see sidehill JD combines much. In fact, JD doesn't make them anymore. As for the 4760, it has black radiator screens. I've never seen that and wonder if those are after market?

We still pick with ear corn with a new Idea mounted picker mounted on a Farmall M. We are also located in north east Iowa. Check out some of my videos with the picker.

What would ear corn be used for now? Is this done just for the novelty of it, or is there a practical reason pick a proportion of this field rather than shell it?

Ground ear corn put roughage in the ground feed and higher butterfat in our milk.

What will the farm use the whole corn cobs for?dont see why they do this instead of shelling it all

Where in Iowa?

Why 38" ? seems like such a specific number.

Why's the Allis picking one row?

We never did any fall plowing.

Still picking corn! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zxuV6Gcuix4.html