Harvest (20200822-NRCS-LSC-1127)

About

Low wide video view that includes a view through the screened gate of a cotton module builder (stompers), as a basket-type cotton picker harvesters pulling up and unload cotton bolls into the builder that uses a hydraulic ram and tramper beam to compress the cotton into modules, 32 feet long, 7 1/2 feet wide, and 9 1/2 feet tall, then the stomper is raised and pulled away, simultaneously pulling a protective tarp over the top, following the end of each day, a vacuum is used to pick up all the fallen cotton and added to a module during the Ernie Schirmer Farms cotton harvest, in Batesville, TX, on August 22, 2020. For more information about the cotton harvest, the Schirmer family, and their farms, please go to https://www.flickr.com/short_urls.gne?photoset=aHsmPYgNPx

From 10 AM to 10 PM, harvesters are driven across the circular (pivot irrigated) fields. The harvesters use specialized harvester heads that twist and pull the soft, cotton boll from the plant; and then the cotton bolls are vacuumed up into a large open-air bin. When full, operators return to the mobile industrial area to unload cotton into 'stompers' (module builders). Stompers use a hydraulic ram and tramper beam to compress the cotton into modules, 32 feet long, 7 1/2 feet wide, and 9 1/2 feet tall. Once complete, the stomper is raised and pulled away, simultaneously pulling a protective tarp over the top. Once covered tight, the modules become the property of the cotton gin.

The Schirmer family have owned and operated farms in the south-central Texas region for six generations, since 1875. In the harvesters are Ernie Schirmer Farms (Batesville) Operations Manager Brandon Schirmer (in grey shirt and dark brimmed cap, 6th generation), and farm owner and father Ernie Schirmer (dark shirt and orange cap, 5th generation), Jerry Berstraeten, with son Brett; at the same time, Ernie's wife Terri (yellow shirt and tan cap), cousin Cali Erfurth (pink t-shirt), Derek Reininger (grey t-shirt and tan cap) and a fellow farmowner Carl Santleben (western hat) operate the stompers. For more information about the Schirmer family and their farms, please go to https://www.flickr.com/short_urls.gne?photoset=aHsmPYgNPx

USDA Photo and Media by Lance Cheung.

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