In a previous post, I told you about picking corn up north, I should say in north east, in Quebec. I share a NI Unisystem with a neighbour. Before this Unisystem, we both used NI 325 picker for as long I remember. Good pickers, but significant head losses. Last year after the Irene storm, our corn was badly down and nearly impossible to pick with PT picker. So we bought a NI Unisystem 802 power unit with a 838 husker and 844 corn head. We were able to put our crop in cribs as usual. We pick 24 000 bu. every year.
This summer we have overhauled the husking unit. Many shafts were grooved and loose in bearings, rubber rolls in the husking bed as slick as gums, sprockets teeth wore out if not missing. A good machinist built the needed new shafts, we put new rubber disks on the husking rolls (116 disks per rolls!) and changed maybe half of the bearings. Now we have a very decent unit and as a proof, no downtime this fall and the machine picks very clean which it wasnt before. The corn head was taken care the year before new knifes, very expensive. Doing all ourselves, we kept the cost reasonable and we are happy of the results.
As you will notice on my pics, the picker was working only 3 rows even if its a 4 rows head. We were picking a long field with good yield (180 bu.+). For us, picking is a 2 men job, one picking and the other hauling and unloading. We like to do a complete round. with each load to decrease the travel and the time for hauling. For our unloading setup, see my next post. I hope you will enjoy.
Thanks for sharing your pictures and story about the Uni. It looks like a good unit and after all of the work you did to it, I am sure it runs well. One day, I am going to find a good used one-nothing big, 701 or 702 with a husking bed and 2 row head. Something the pocketbook can handle and something that is going to be for picking alittle bit of corn. Keep taking pictures and sharing them---Thanks again!!
