Skip Row System Works Great For Specialty Corn Grower

Skip Row System Works Great For Specialty Corn Grower AG WORLD Ag World 21-1-29 Until Mike Dwyer came up with a skip row system for his sweet corn, popcorn and Indian corn, he harvested by hand and had no way to spray standing crops. Now, the Wallingford, Conn., specialty corn grower is able to make the most of his Deere 650 utility tractor, using it to both pick and spray his corn. He plants with a 4-row (30-in.) Deere planter, leaving a 54-in skip after every two passes with the planter. The skips are just right for maneuvering his Deere 650, which has a 48-in. rear wheel width. He sprays for earworms with a home-built spray rig and picks corn with a home-built pull-type picker. His spray rig consists of a used 21-ft. Century spray boom on a home-built frame that mounts on the 3-pt. hitch of Dwyer's Deere 650 so he can raise height to 6 ft. Dwyer's picker consists of a prototype 1-row Byron sweet corn head mounted on the frame of a Deere 34 forage chopper. He cut the chopper frame down by 18 in., to just under 7 ft. wide, and fitted it with narrow 650 by 15-in. car tires so he doesn't run down any rows when harvesting. He bolted a plywood hopper with capacity for 500 ears of corn on the back axle of the chopper. He uses the chopper's gear box to drive the picker off the tractor's pto, running at a slow 200 rpm's to avoid damage to corn. A helper sits on back of the picker to keep corn moving to the rear of the hopper. Dwyer built his sprayer for $350 and his corn picker for $2,600. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mike Dwyer, 97 Leigus Rd., Wallingford, Conn. 06492-2517 (ph 203 949-8043).

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