With the slightest breeze, the raw, fluffy cotton seems to dance, tethered precariously to its nearly dried-up boll.
Then a loud, lumbering harvester, driven by Armando Burruel, tears it from its husk and sucks it into the back of the vehicle along with the other raw pieces of cotton.
The cotton harvest in Marana marks the end of summer but for some, like Burruel, it means long, dusty days of picking for 10 hours a day or more.
Burruel, who returned to the family business four years ago, steers his hulking John Deere 9996 cotton harvester in a straight line until he gets to the end of the row.
As he turns the harvester around to drive down another row, dust rises and the machine rocks wickedly from side to side.
"It's a lot like driving a marshmallow on wheels," he said loudly over the sound of the engine.
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The machine can pick up 5,000 pounds of cotton before unloading it in a cotton module builder, which can then make a 20,000-pound block of cotton, he said.
With workers starting in mid-October, it takes about a month to harvest the 1,500 acres of cotton at Burruel and Burruel Farms. This year that includes a brief delay because of rain and a mechanical problem, Burruel said.
At the end of one row, he eases the now-full harvester alongside the yellow module builder that waits next to the road.
The harvester sways to a halt before Burruel tilts the load of cotton sideways into the compactor, where operator Alvaro Esquer uses hand signals to communicate with him.
With Esquer at the controls, the cotton is compressed with a hydraulic compactor that presses the cotton evenly to form a long solid, block.
Afterward, the block is covered to protect it from the elements.
With his machine empty, Burruel heads his harvester back toward the field, rumbling off to gather another load, dust rising in his wake.
Contact A.E. Araiza at 573-4155 or araiza@azstarnet.com
