Shellers keep corn moving toward elevator

RANTOUL, Ill. — A part of corn harvesting that has primarily went by the wayside since the development of combines will be on display at the Half Century of Progress.

Once the corn pickers’ wagon is filled from the nearby field on the former Chanute Air Force Base grounds, the "corn on the cob" — not the typical garden variety — will be hauled to shellers.

"We’ll bring the ear corn in from the field. We have two portable corn cribs we use to reenact filling a crib. From the crib we go into the corn sheller and shell the corn. The shelled corn is put into a wagon. The cobs come out another spot and the dirt and stuff blows out of a tube and into a pile," said Gary Sage, corn shelling coordinator along with Shawn Ashby.

"We’ll have one sheller there that's going to be run by a steam engine. We have one sheller that is mounted onto a truck. Normally a sheller would be run by a tractor off its PTO, but we’re trying to get a little bit of everything out there to show different types of operations."

The corn cobs are put into manure spreaders and spread back into the fields.

"They used to pay us for corn cobs when we shelled the ear corn. It was used for facial powder and for fillers like in cereals," Sage added.

The corn is shipped by semis to the local elevator.

"We’ve been very fortunate. The corn we grow there is a very early variety. It's not a corn that we typically as farmers plant around here, but we’ve been very fortunate where the moisture has been good, in the teens, low 20s. The elevators really don't want 30%, 35% or 40% moisture because they’d have to fire up a dryer," Sage explained.

One of the biggest challenges is setting a deliberate pace for the corn picker operators so the demonstration can be held daily.

"They have to keep the corn pickers slowed down. They’d have it done in a day if we just turned them loose. We try to spread that out over four days so everybody has an opportunity to see what we’re doing there," Sage said, referring to the enthusiastic pickers as "like a bunch of kids in a candy store."