A local man actually INVENTED “The Pickle Picker” 
They’re out doing the fields here now, I think they’re on contract with McDonald’s.
GUYS I GOT PICTURES! :lol:
[URL=“https://www.dropbox.com/sc/qm4chh8yxpbukxu/AAAgOD8qkzHVQu5WFq63KczWa”]https://www.dropbox.com/sc/qm4chh8yxpbukxu/AAAgOD8qkzHVQu5WFq63KczWa
There’s one of the very bare field and one of the plants that are still left on the front of the field. They really look like soy to me, but a) I don’t know jack and b) the bulk of the field might have been planted with something else??
Soy is a bean, that looks like something else.I’d expect to see at least one little pea type flower or a pod. Or a weed maybe. Do they grow peanuts up there, no way they do that do they? That or potatoes would explain turning the earth.
Hmm.
No, it’s definitely not potatoes. I’m 99% sure that’s a soy bean plant–we are surrounded by them right now. There were…I dunno…15 rows of these things? I didn’t want to go wandering out into the field to get better pics. I was also surprised by the lack of flower or bean, but I’m not sure what the unmolested plants look like right now. I guess I can walk across the street and see. We have beans on all four sides this year
The field hasn’t been turned over–the plants are just gone.
Oh, here’s a soy plant: http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Crops/Soybean/images/L004/ISU53fig9.gif in “V6 stage” per this site: http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Crops/Soybean/L004.aspx . Looks about right?
[QUOTE=Simkie;8737545]
No, it’s definitely not potatoes. I’m 99% sure that’s a soy bean plant–we are surrounded by them right now. There were…I dunno…15 rows of these things? I didn’t want to go wandering out into the field to get better pics. I was also surprised by the lack of flower or bean, but I’m not sure what the unmolested plants look like right now. I guess I can walk across the street and see. We have beans on all four sides this year
The field hasn’t been turned over–the plants are just gone.
Oh, here’s a soy plant: http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Crops/Soybean/images/L004/ISU53fig9.gif in “V6 stage” per this site: http://corn.agronomy.wisc.edu/Crops/Soybean/L004.aspx . Looks about right?[/QUOTE]
You are right. They are not potatoes. It does look like soybean plants, although it is odd that there don’t seem to be bean pods. Depending what kind of weather you’ve had: too cool spring, wet and got planted late, etc. the farmer may have decide to take/salvage the plants for animal feed in order to get proper timing to plant something else they had planned into their rotation.
Another possibility is that they were planted as a set aside/diversion crop on what otherwise might have been fallow acres in a conservation program. Some of those programs have counter-intuitive rules regarding payment to not plant certain overproduced crops while allowing planting of other crops. (Our tax money at work:() The mystery continues…
Soybeans in Mo/Ks are just coming up. They get planted late and usually harvested in November
It does look like a soybean plant. It is too early for beans to be on the plant in the OP’s part of the country. The plants are just starting to blossom now to be harvested in the fall. It wouldn’t make sense to harvest now.
Edible beans have been harvested for at least a week in Madison, WI. I have no idea what the process looks like, but I did learn from a trucker that when the beans are piled together, they will cook themselves/heat up/spoil like hay will. So it’s a race to get it to the cannery. Might explain the overnight work during cooler hours?
This reminds me of the time I was house-sitting at a house that was basically 2 cleared acres in the middle of a bunch of fields. One night “aliens” came to attack across the street–they were harvesting peas/pea hay. Looked like giant monsters in the middle of the night 
Perhaps the soy plants have nothing to do with what was on the field at all, and it was peas or eatable beans or cukes.
This pea harvester does look to be the right shape, but it spits out the straw stuff. There were two machines on the field, so maybe the second picked up the waste for sileage or something? It does otherwise look to leave the ground pretty bare!
Oh! This thing is the closest match I’ve seen!
Yup, I think it might have been this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzPMs5ZzxRg
And the local canning plant definitely does peas.
Mystery solved? Or as close as we’re going to get??
See, I said peas!
[QUOTE=Mosey_2003;8738790]
See, I said peas! :D[/QUOTE]
Winner winner chicken dinner
You think maybe the big machines are owned by the canning plant, and they hire them out to harvest? Looks like some spendy machinery!
I dunno, it’s possible. Trying to think if I’ve ever noticed a Del Monte logo on ours out here…
[QUOTE=Simkie;8738819]
Winner winner chicken dinner
You think maybe the big machines are owned by the canning plant, and they hire them out to harvest? Looks like some spendy machinery![/QUOTE]
There are a lot of custom harvesters in our area–that the farmer can pay to take their crops in for them.
OTOH, yeah, farm equipment is generally pretty spendy.
