The most unique harvesters

When it comes to agricultural machinery, many people have associations associated with combine harvesters, tractors, plows, seeders, etc. At the same time, eating vegetables and fruits, few people think about how they harvest in such large quantities: one manual labor is clearly not enough. The global "agricultural industry" has not left this problem aside, and today there are unique machines on the market that help harvest or even completely replace a person.

Orange harvesters

Removing these citrus fruits is labor-intensive, primarily due to the height of the trees. To solve the problem, the American company Oxbo proposed using the original complex, which includes a combine harvester and a pair of trailers moved by tractors. How does the system work? The main unit passes between the trees, and, as it passes, “pulls” their branches with long rotating “fingers” up to 2,1 m long. As a result, the fruits fall onto a catcher conveyor located below, which moves the oranges back to the collection tank.



Such a system allows you to remove up to 95% of the crop. The harvester spends about 8 seconds on a tree. That is, a pair of units “produces” up to 450 tons of oranges per day, replacing 120-140 workers. The harvester is equipped with a 170-horsepower engine, all wheels are steerable for better maneuverability. When working on rough terrain, the automatic leveling system is activated. During the advancement of the fruits along the conveyor, debris is removed.



If someone is not satisfied with fully automated harvesting of fruits, you can use the Facilitadora CF6 combine, which provides a small mechanization of the process. The car, which appeared on the market in 2013, is produced by the German company Schülter.

How Facilitadora CF6 works

Everything is much simpler here: the harvester only provides the convenience and safety of manual fruit picking. For each worker there is a separate place-basket, controlled by means of a hydraulic drive and equipped with a conveyor. On it oranges move to the bunker. At the same time, the "basket" can be moved by the worker in any direction by means of pedals, which frees up the hands. The combine is equipped with a Perkins 1104 engine, providing 84 horsepower. With.

Bell pepper harvester

The popularity of this product is not even worth talking about. It not only has excellent taste, but also contains many important vitamins. The collection of this product is a laborious task, divided into several stages. All of them managed to "fit" in one harvester Guaresi G 89/93, manufactured by the Italian company Guaresi SpA The machine cuts plants, removes stones and leaves. At the final stage, sorting is carried out, but already manually, by workers. Russian designers also did not stand aside and offer their own version of the "pepper" harvester - the Astrakhan combine.

Trailed conveyor for harvesting melons and gourds

Here, it was somehow not possible to completely abandon physical labor, and the manufacturer Spapperi (Italy) offered a trailer aggregated with a tractor and a conveyor belt. Model BR712 can take up to 12 tons of cargo. Large ground clearance (0,5 m) allows you to calmly pass uneven surfaces of melons. The length of the conveyor, made of steel and aluminum, is 9 m, the width is 0,4 m. The operator controls the hydraulic drive of the mechanism. The conveyor belt can be attached to a trailer or exit to load the product onto a separately supplied vehicle.

tomato harvesters

The Italians also succeeded in their production: the Guaresi company produces special two-row machines for harvesting tomatoes. Harvesting is carried out in 1 pass, while the throughput of the combine can be up to 80 t / h. When the tomatoes are cut, they go in two ways: the crumbling tomatoes end up on the sorting table, and those that got into the inside of the machine along with the bushes go to the fruit separator. The harvester is equipped with color sensors that distinguish between red and green tomatoes. The latter, upon detection, are mercilessly thrown back onto the field. Some technical characteristics of harvesters from Guaresi:

• ✅ used engines - FPT or Iveco
  
• ✅ power - 175-238 hp With.
  
• ✅ transmission - hydrostatic self-locking
  
• ✅ developed speed - up to 27 km / h
  

The machine can move independently on public roads and meets the environmental requirements of Euro 4.

Harvester for harvesting pumpkin seeds

Yes, you heard right: special units are able to collect the contents of these large fruits, and not themselves. Here, Moty (Australia) has succeeded in mechanizing the process. Algorithm:

• ✅ pumpkins are picked up by a drum equipped with 10 rows of needles
  
• ✅ further the fruits are destroyed by the grinder
  
• ✅ seeds are separated from the pulp by semicircular rods, located on a roll of a special design, having a diameter of 3 m
  

The technique provides a system that removes stones, all operations are controlled by automation and displayed on the display. 1,8 tons of clean, sorted seeds are placed in the cargo compartment. For their unloading, a screw mechanism is used. Unnecessary waste is evenly scattered across the field: after rotting, good fertilizer is obtained for the next crop.

Flower cutting machine

It would seem: harvesting such a crop by hand is a real pleasure. But this is if we are talking about our own modest garden. On an industrial scale, special equipment is used, a prominent representative of which is the brainchild of the Romanian company Pink Innovation. The main mechanism is a drum with knives. They cut the stems and stack along the machine on both sides for manual selection. The equipment is very simple in design, easy to operate and maintain, and is inexpensive. In models from other manufacturers, the flowers may come on conveyor belts or in vacuum tubes. In the latter case, damage is minimal.

Automated olive harvest

For these purposes, a unique harvester from the manufacturer Pellenc is used, capable of passing through trees up to 4,5 m high and no more than 2 m wide. The nature of the terrain does not matter: sensors control the machine, and actuators automatically “put” it into the desired position.



The process takes place in 2 stages: first, the fruits are harvested by shaking from the bottom of the tree, then from the top. The olives received by the harvester are cleaned and sorted using pneumatic equipment. This protects the fruits from damage, because they almost do not come into contact with the walls of the conveyor. Characteristics of cleaning equipment:

• ✅ optimal speed - 4,5 km / h
  
• ✅ bunker capacity - 3 tons
  
• ✅ productivity - 165 tons per day
  

Conclusion

And this is not all the unique harvesters, often produced in small batches. Humanity is constantly improving and what seemed exotic yesterday is becoming commonplace today. Just remember an ordinary grain harvester: such a miracle could only be dreamed of 150 years ago.