Potato harvester
A potato harvester is a harvesting machine used to harvest potatoes .
Procedure
The potatoes are lifted out of the earth by a ploughshare that cuts under the potato dam. Two to four-part leaf shares are common as shares, while trough or disc-shaped shares are used less often. Leaf coulters are laterally bounded by large disc coulters . On the one hand, the coulter should separate the potato tops and, on the other hand, prevent tubers from being lost or damaged by damming up or breaking out of the dam parts that remain at the side.
The potatoes pass from the coulter onto an ascending sieve chain. This already separates the potatoes from the soil taken up by the dam and small stones. Subsequently, the potatoes are separated from the collected potato tops by a coarse-meshed sieve chain and / or a so-called plucking roller, and larger stones and clods of earth (so-called clods) are separated by further separating devices. Some machine types also have a picking table at which harvest workers can also sort out stones and small or damaged potatoes by hand.
The potatoes are then cleaned and taken to a storage bunker, or they are loaded directly onto a transport vehicle driving alongside. Sorting and bagging on the harvester in line with market requirements is less common . In the case of self-propelled machines, the storage bunker can hold up to 15 tons.
Types
At the moment (as of 2010) one to four-row harvesters are in use, some as self-propelled machines.
literature
- Horst Eichhorn (editor): Landtechnik . 7th edition. Ulmer, Stuttgart 1952/1999, ISBN 3-8001-1086-5 .
- Paul Schweigmann: The agricultural machines and their maintenance . 1st edition. Pfanneberg, Gießen 1955, reprinted by Bulldog-Press, Limburg ad Lahn 1993, ISBN 3-9803332-1-3 .
