The cotton module builder is a machine used in the harvest and processing of

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

. The module builder has helped to solve a logistical

bottleneck Bottleneck literally refers to the narrowed portion (neck) of a bottle near its opening, which limit the rate of outflow, and may describe any object of a similar shape. The literal neck of a bottle was originally used to play what is now known as ...

by allowing cotton to be harvested quickly and compressed into large modules which are then covered and temporarily stored at the edge of the field. The modules are later loaded onto trucks and transported to a cotton gin for processing.

History

In 1971 the first experimental cotton module builder was designed and built by a team led by Professor Lambert H. Wilkes at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

in cooperation with

Cotton Incorporated Cotton Incorporated is a non-profit organization funded by cotton growers in the United States through per-bale assessments on producers and importers levied by the Cotton Board, which reports to the United States Department of Agriculture. Th ...

.The Module Builder
Cotton module builders have been in use since 1972. In the US today more than 90% of harvested cotton is compacted with module builders. Module builders are also widely used in other countries where cotton is mechanically harvested. In 2002 the

ASABE The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) is an international professional society devoted to agricultural and biological engineering. It was founded in December 1907 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as the Ame ...

(American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers) dedicated the cotton module builder as an historic landmark of agricultural engineering, naming it "one of the top three inventions in mechanized cotton production."

Module Building

Though many varieties of module builders and even combined module builder pickers exist, a typical module builder is a large trailer that is moved by a tractor and remains stationary when used. The wheels are often

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...

ally retracted when the module builder is operational. A module builder is about 9 meters (30 ft.) long, 4 meters (12 ft.) high and 3 meters (10 ft.) wide. It works similarly to a

garbage truck A garbage truck is a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and transport it to a solid waste treatment facility, such as a landfill, recycling center or transfer station. In Australia they are commonly called rubbish truck ...

. When loading the cotton from the

cotton picker A cotton picker is either a machine that harvests cotton, or a person who picks ripe cotton fibre from the plants. The machine is also referred to as a cotton harvester. History In many societies, like America, slave and serf labor was utiliz ...

into the module builder it should be distributed as evenly as possible. After loading the cotton into the module builder, a hydraulic compactor moves up and down along the length of the machine. This process is repeated every time that a cotton picker is unloaded into the module builder until a module is built up and discharged through the tailgate of the machine. The module is stored on the field and the module builder is moved into a new position to build up another module. The weight of one module is about 10 metric tons.

References

External links

Cotton Module Builder to be Designated a Historical Landmark
Agricultural machinery {{agri-stub