Patent ID: 8534035

Claim:
A high through-put cotton harvesting system for selectively harvesting cotton bolls from a plurality of cotton plants in a field, said system comprising: a self-propelled mobile platform structured and operable to be driven through a field of cotton; a plurality of plant picker assemblies hung from a plurality of picker assembly hangers pivotally mounted to and extending from each of one or more hanger booms connected to and laterally extendable away from the mobile platform such that each hanger boom is extendable over a plurality of rows of cotton plants in the field, each plant picker assembly structured and independently operable to utilize a vacuum force to extract cotton bolls from cotton plants in a respective one of the rows of plants over which the respective hanger boom extends as the mobile platform is driven through the field and deposit the extracted cotton bolls into one or more selected collection receptacles, via the vacuum force; and a vacuum generation source structured and operable to generate the vacuum force utilized by each of the plant picker assemblies.