University of California

Lowell K Marshall

Thomas S Bettencourt

Charles F Dietz

William C Friedel, Jr

Tomatoes are mechanically harvested by moving a mechanical harvester through a row of growing tomato plants, severing the plants below ground, and picking up the severed plants along with loose tomatoes and some dirt clods, while returning loose dirt to the ground. The severed tomato plants are separated from the loose tomatoes and dirt clods and are shaken to remove the tomatoes from the plants. These tomatoes are recovered and conveyed forwardly past sorters. In the meantime the originally loose tomatoes and clods are passed rearwardly countercurrently to the mainstream of tomatoes, by the sorters for recovery of good loose tomatoes. Preferably, the pickup is made at about 15% slower than the ground speed of the harvester, while the separation between plants and the clods and loose tomatoes is made at the ground speed and the separated plants are carried away from that separation step at a speed about 15% greater than the ground speed of the harvester.

Method for mechanically harvesting tomatoes

An improved tomato harvester severs tomato plants just below the ground and picks up the plants. Dirt clods, along with some loose tomatoes, are mechanically separated from the plants, and the plants are thereupon subjected to increasingly vigorous shaking by walking bars having plural upstanding resilient inverted vee projections to remove the tomatoes. The tomatoes are freed of chaff, twigs and other foreign matter and are then carried on a pair of main sorting conveyors past sorters who remove culls. At the same time the clods and loose tomatoes pass countercurrently by the same sorters, some of whom select the good loose tomatoes and place them onto the main sorting conveyor while the loose culls and clods are conveyed to the ground for disposal.

Tomato harvester

A tomato harvester with improved maneuverability and versatility. An improved spinner gives better action in wet soil. The driver obtains improved visibility from an improved canopy structure and is given controls that are easier to identify. An improved collecting conveyor affords balance between the two sides. The conveyor system is improved, in many ways, with better transmission between the conveyors and better access to cleaning. An improved output conveyor and drop loader are also provided.

Growing community of inventors

Sacramento, CA, United States of America

Lowell K Marshall