Potato Harvester Product

Overview

A potato harvester is a towed implement that lifts a ridge of soil and potatoes, sieves the soil away, removes haulm and clods, and delivers clean tubers into a bunker or trailer. It has no engine; the tractor pulls it by an offset Frame & Hitch and drives all the webs and rollers through the PTO Driveline. Because the machine is hitched to one side, the tractor runs on cleared ground while the harvester works directly over the rows.

The harvesting job is mostly one of gentle separation. Potatoes bruise easily, so every stage is tuned to handle soil and crop together at first and then strip away everything that is not a saleable tuber, dropping the loss back onto the field with as little drop height and impact as possible.

How it works

At the front, the Digging Share cuts under each ridge with wide shares and edge coulters, lifting a slab of soil and tubers onto the separation line. That slab is carried up the Separation Webs: endless rod-link belts whose rod spacing lets soil fall through while retaining the potatoes, helped by agitators that shake the web to shed clinging dirt.

Vines and loose haulm are pulled out next by the Haulm Separator, where spiralled rubber rollers driven by electric motors built on a Stator Assembly and Rotor Assembly grip the trash and draw it down and out the bottom while the tubers ride over the top. What survives reaches the Picking Table, a slowed inspection belt where workers pull out stones, clods and rotten tubers by hand.

Clean tubers are then carried up the Bunker Elevator into the holding bunker, which buffers the crop so the machine need not stop to unload every trailer. Share depth, haulm-roller speed and bunker tipping are all set hydraulically through the Hydraulic System circuit off the tractor remotes, while the Monitor & Controls monitor reports web load so the operator keeps the feed matched to the separation capacity.