Sunflower harvesting - GIF

Sunflower harvesting.

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Previously:

https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...699#post111306
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...601#post166897
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...715#post174731
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...077#post164867
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...472#post116998
https://www.homemadetools.net/forum/...944#post109050

I do not understand this video. I grew up where they harvest sunflowers with a combine, and there are two types, confection, and oil. Either are combined with machinery, not hand picked. Now I have family that has hand picked field corn (not sweet corn) within my life time, and that looks like this operation, except there is a special hook that is strapped on each hand to pull the husk loose. In the old days, long before me, well trained horses pulled a wagon along side and with voice command would pull forward as the rows being worked were completed.

Ditto, the farm I worked on used a small combine harvester with a blower/ thresher inside which smashed the heads and the seeds dropped into a bin, whereas the stalk, leaves, head were blown out the back as rough cut silage. I remember walking beside that harvester for a few days with the sole task of reattaching the access door to the blower section each time the hinge failed and it blew off. - too busy to stop harvest and fix the door, but I reckon we lost a few hours across that harvest each time I had to signal the driver, run up and put the door back on, and rewedge it with the stick we were using... used my entire lunchbreak just finding and shaping a new stick to replace the one which broke... could have used the same lunch break to run a few self tappers in and stop the door opening , but it wasn't my farm, or my harvester... the joys of being "unskilled labour"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by metric_taper

I do not understand this video. I grew up where they harvest sunflowers with a combine, and there are two types, confection, and oil. Either are combined with machinery, not hand picked. Now I have family that has hand picked field corn (not sweet corn) within my life time, and that looks like this operation, except there is a special hook that is strapped on each hand to pull the husk loose. In the old days, long before me, well trained horses pulled a wagon along side and with voice command would pull forward as the rows being worked were completed.

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When it comes to growing and harvesting sunflowers, the process seems pretty complicated:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIoUK_UV-Qk

Though this video is really enlightening, a question still lingers in my head:
-How the heck does the planting machine orient the seeds as to keep the flowers pointed straight towards the Sun?

Where there're a billion people hand labor is cheaper than automation.