HARVESTING OF MAIZE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 65, 17 April 1945, Page 5

HARVESTING OF MAIZE

PLUCKING BY MACHINERY

At the meeting of maize growers hekl in the County Council Chambers recently, Mr S. Maliy outlined the prospects concerning the use of machines in maize plucking.

They had experimented with a maize plucking machine last year, lie said and found that the chief difficulty lay in the presence of pump kins, etc. in the maize which blocked the plucker. The growth and weeds were also very thick. This latter point, he said f could be overcome provided the growth were not too thick. There were also certain areas which were too wet for the machine to operate on 5 but in the majority of cases conditions were quite satisfactory. To gst lull however, tile maize would have to be kept much cleaner than it was at present. There were certain disadvantages in the use of the machine. In thick crops a certain amount of the grain was wasted while in all areas over which tl)e piuckcr was used ? the stalks were absolutely flattened. This could not be avoided.

If however the maize were planted for the machine and kept clean } there was no reason why this form of plucking could not be carried out successfully..