Harvesters – Seed gatherers or strippers – Moving comb
Patent
1991-03-26
1993-01-05
Melius, Terry Lee
Harvesters
Seed gatherers or strippers
Moving comb
56364, A01D 4530, A01D 6502
Patent
active
051759845
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to apparatus for harvesting crop.
The invention is concerned with detaching from the stems or other plant parts of standing crop, seeds, seed-bearing parts, leaves, twigs, flowers, or other predetermined required portion of the crop, collecting the required portion, and leaving the remaining stripped parts of the crop standing in the field. The invention has particular but not exclusive application in the harvesting of grain crops, such as wheat, oats, barley, and rice. The invention also has application in the stripping of leaves, young shoots, and sometimes blossom from crops. Examples include lucerne (alfalfa) leaves for protein production, and the leaves and flowers of herbs and other crops used for the extraction of essential oils and other constituents.
There have been proposed over very many years a large number of different forms of apparatus for detaching grain, or other required portions of a crop, from a standing crop, to leave the remaining stripped parts of the crop standing in the field. None of the earlier of these previous machines has found commercial acceptance, and such machines have various disadvantages.
However, there have been described in our published patent applications WO 86/01972 and GB-A-2188822, a number of forms of new crop stripping machines which have proved successful in the field and have been put into commercial practice.
It is an object of the present invention to provide improved apparatus for and methods of stripping required parts from a standing crop, generally of the kind set out in our published applications numbered above.
By the term standing crop is meant crop in the field before any harvesting operation has been carried out on it, for example before any cutting operation, and the term standing crop includes crop which may be laid, leaning, or twisted, as well as upright crop.
According to the present invention in one aspect there is provided apparatus for harvesting required crop parts from standing crop comprising a mobile frame for movement over the ground, moveable support means mounted for driven movement relative to the frame, a plurality of outwardly projecting crop engaging elements mounted on the moveable support means in rows transverse to the normal direction of forward travel of the apparatus, guide means cooperating with the crop engaging elements to form a crop flow passage, and drive means for driving the moveable support means to carry the elements upwardly at a front region of the apparatus so as to detach from standing crop predetermined required parts of the crop and to move the detached crop parts along the crop flow passage, the crop engaging elements being arranged to engage standing crop while projecting forwardly relative to the direction of forward travel of the apparatus, the crop engaging elements being arranged to form a plurality of crop gathering regions each having an intake region with inwardly converging boundaries leading to at least two succeeding relief regions which lead inwardly away from the distal ends of the elements, each relief region having boundaries which diverge from each other at the entrance to the relief region, and the width of the entrance to each relief region being less than the depth of that relief region in the inward direction away from the distal ends of the elements, each crop gathering region being defined by adjacent crop engaging elements in the same transverse row, in which the entrance to the second relief region is formed between opposed prominent salients on the sides of adjacent elements produced by respective junctions of the boundaries of the first relief region with the boundaries of the second relief region. The tip of each salient may be rounded, or may be pointed.
Preferably the entrance to the second relief region is formed between opposed cusps on the sides of adjacent elements produced by respective junctions of curved boundaries of the first relief region with curved boundaries of the second relief region. Preferably each cusp is formed at the intersection
REFERENCES:
patent: 4578937 (1986-04-01), West et al.
patent: 4790128 (1988-12-01), Klinner
patent: 4843806 (1989-07-01), Klinner
patent: 5036653 (1991-08-01), Klinner
Hale Oliver D.
Hobson Robert N.
Nguyen Vien N.
British Technology Group Limited
Melius Terry Lee
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