Apparatus and process for field harvesting of peppers

摘要

A traveling field harvester for pepper plants comprises a pair of generally mirror image tapered helical rod assemblies located on each side of a longitudinally extending slot in which plants to be treated by the harvester are located. The rods are rotated in timed and phased relationship about horizontally spaced apart axes of frustoconical surfaces with axes closer together at their rear than at their front and both located in a forwardly and downwardly inclined horizontally extending flat plane. The phasing and timing of the moving rods controllably and evenly contacts and shakes and kneads the pepper plants standing in the field to selectively remove mature peppers from those pepper plants in an automatic smooth harvesting action that does no harm to the plants and allows a subsequent similar treatment of the plants for later selective harvesting of later maturing peppers.