Cotton picker

Rust determined that a smooth, moist spindle could be used to strip the fibers from the boll without trapping them in the machinery.

Although the first Rust picker was not without serious deficiencies, it did pick cotton and the demonstration attracted considerable national press coverage.

Then, widespread adoption was delayed by the manufacturing demands of World War II.

In the following years mechanical pickers were gradually improved and were increasingly adopted by farmers.

But about the time mechanical pickers were introduced, plant breeders developed hybrid cotton varieties with bolls higher off the ground and that ripened uniformly.

Also, herbicides were developed to defoliate the plants and drop their leaves before the picker came through, producing a cleaner harvest.

It uses rows of barbed spindles that rotate at high speed and remove the seed-cotton from the plant.

An industry-exclusive on-board round module builder was offered by John Deere in 2007.