TOBACCO HARVESTER HAVING A HYDRAULIC CONTROL SYSTEM FOR AUTOMATICALLY AND CONTINUOUSLY CONTROLLING THE SPEED OF A LEAF DEFOLIATOR ASSEMBLY IN RELATION TO THE HARVESTER GROUND SPEED

摘要

A tobacco harvester having a hydraulic control system for automatically and continuously controlling and maintaining the speed of a leaf defoliator assembly relative to and in proportion to the ground speed of the tobacco harvester. The hydraulic control system is adapted to continuously control the horizontal rearward speed component of the defoliating elements of a leaf defoliator assembly such that the defoliating elements move rearwardly during leaf defoliation at approximately the same speed the harvester is moving forward.P PTo provide for continuous speed control of the defoliator assembly, the hydraulic speed control system is operative to continuously effectively sense or monitor harvester ground speed and to continuously drive the defoliator assembly in proportion to the effectively sensed or monitored ground speed. In addition, the output of said hydraulic control system for controlling the speed of the defoliator assembly can be varied independently of harvester ground speed in order to synchronize or adjust the horizontal rearward speed component of the defoliating elements associated with said defoliator assembly to equal or nearly equal the forward ground speed of the harvester. Thus, the speed of the defoliator assembly is not only controlled and driven in proportion to the harvester ground speed, but the horizontal rearward speed component of the defoliating elements are driven at a speed approximately equal to the harvester ground speed. Consequently, once a certain speed relationship is established between the defoliator assembly and the harvester ground speed, this same speed relationship continues to exist for any and all harvester speeds. The result is that the defoliating elements during leaf defoliation move inwardly into the plane of the stalk row and outwardly therefrom in a continuous synchronized relationship with the passing tobacco stalks without significantly bending, breaking or cutting the stalks passing through the defoliator assembly.