Cotton has long been a staple for farmer’s in Arizona to grow. In this day and time it is becoming more scarce and yet the inovations in cotton picking machinery continue to produce amazing machines! This year our cotton was harvested by a custom harvest company with a new cotton picker called a John Deere CP690 Cotton Picker.

We were excited to have it in the field this year, so for once my husband Gary summoned me to actually take pictures! Generally I am the one who is wrangling everyone for pictures. We captured some great pictures!

Let me share with you a little Cotton Picking 101 so you can understand the excitement. Original cotton pickers were…..well……people’s hands. My Dad picked cotton as kid with the crews that his dad ran in the cotton fields of Eloy, Arizona. His father brought crews from Oklahoma to cotton camps where they lived during harvest. My mother’s Dad immigranted from Mexico and then started share cropping after World War II and eventually became a land owner and farmer.

Then came the mechanical 2 row cotton picker in the early 1950s. This revolutionized the cotton industry with the reduction of vast amounts of hand labor. A machine could efficiently pick the same amount as up to 100 workers. By the early 1960s in the west cotton was picked by machine only.

That’s when I showed up on the farm! The cotton was picked by the machine then dumped in trailers at the end of the field. There was a person who would pick up all the cotton that fell around the trailer then several people would get in the cotton trailer and “tromp” it down. This was how we compacted the cotton in the trailer to get the maximum amount in each trailer. Once the trailer was full, then it had to be driven to the gin and dropped off to be ginned at a later date.

I have many fond memories as a kid on the farm of spending the day in a cotton trailer tromping. Although when a few of us kids were together there was also some cotton trailer diving…….we would jump off the top rail and land in the cotton. You did need to avoid the cross bars though…..they hurt when you hit them! We also made some intricate tunnel systems through the edges of the trailer. The trailers were wire or wood so around the edges you could still breathe! An important rule you learned early on. Now I know we really weren’t heavy enough to tromp the cotton down to much but were sure did enjoy our time there. If we were lucky we went with Dad or Grandpa to take the cotton trailer and drop it off at the gin where we could get a soda or candy bar that the gin sold at the weigh in counter.

Through the years we have advanced from 2 row to currently up to 8 row cotton pickers. We have also gone from dumping in cotton trailers to dumping into module trailers. These mechanically compress the cotton and leave it on the side of the field in huge 20,000 pound bales. Another truck then scoops them up and takes them to the gin.

Now we have the newest cotton picker that not only picks the cotton 8 rows at a time but also compresses it into giant 5,000 pound rolls, wraps it in plastic and never has to stop in the field or on the ends. The machine gently rolls the round bale off the back of the machine on the end of the field as it continues in motion through the field.

So now it only takes one person to do the job in the field that took hundreds 70 years ago. The round bales still have to be picked up and transported to the gin.

Whether it’s cotton or vegetables or any other crop, harvest time is always an exciting time on the farm! A tiny seed has so much potential. It takes perserverance, hard work, lots of sweat and water in Arizona, and lots of prayer to get to the end! But what a gratifying time when it comes to fruition. The comfy jeans we wear on Saturday morning, the soft towel we dry off with after a warm shower, the swaddle we wrap around our precious baby, the crazy socks you want to wear and the beautiful white puffy couch you saw on Instagram are all as Cotton Incorporated would say……. “the fabric of our lives.”

Thanks for enjoying a little walk down memory lane as a farmer’s granddaughter, daughter and wife! Farming is a so much more than a job, it truly is a lifestyle. Farmer’s feed and cloth the world and I am so thankful that I am a part of this agricultural community.

We might have a Cotton 102 someday! There are so many other interesting facts and information on how we get the cotton from the seed to the end consumer! And just so you know…….they have a beautiful flower!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful start to 2021!

Blessings,

Carrie