Tractor-mounted laterally undercutting transplant digging machine

Abstract

A commercially available four-wheel-drive loader has a conventional 'quick-attachment' front plate liftable by operator-controllable hydraulic-cylinder means; and it has the transplant digging machine easily detachably mounted on said front plate for movement between rows of trees, etc., to a position laterally opposite one selected for transplanting (or root pruning). The transplant digging machine has a U-shaped undercutting blade mounted for downwardly swinging ground-penetrating movement and then horizontal root-cutting movement, by separate sequentially operable hydraulic cylinders. The first cylinder swings a slide-in-guide carrier for the blade through an arc from a downward inclination to a horizontal orientation. The second cylinder is in the carrier, and is operated to force the blade horizontally under the root 'ball' being cut. Two vertically operated flat blades, oriented perpendicularly to the direction of the U-shaped-blade movement, serve both as earth anchors to neutralize reactive lateral thrust from the U-shaped blade and also to sever roots by along-row loader movements.