Abstract: A peanut plant uprooter which enables uprooting peanut plants from the ground without subjecting them to any pulling forces, shaking, them for the purpose of removing dirt placing them back down on the ground, and arranging them in a continuous window with the foliage covering the peanuts. The peanut plant uprooter penetrates the ground underneath the peanuts by means of two square rotating bars, and lifts the plants by means of a digging conveyor. The plants and soil are conveyed from the digging conveyor to a double-inclined conveyor. The plants are cleaned of dirt by shaking with an active shaking device. The plants are them lowered from the rear to the ground and are placed in windows with the peanuts on the ground and the foliage covering the peanuts.

Abstract: Agricultural mechanized system for pulling-off and chopping stubs of cotton plants and similar agricultures, especially of a agricultural mechanized system coupled to a tractor, to plow and pull off the stubs preferably from the cotton agricultures and similar cultures firmly buried, which comprises a set of plows (10) provided with a pair of cutting wheels (14) and a pair of adjustable plowing blades (16 and 16?) between a first position above the ground and a final position of penetration in the ground which is longer than the radicular portion depth of the referred stubs, a chopper set (12) with blades (96) which chop the referred stubs into a particulate material into smaller fragments forming a layer of inert organic matter with at least a stub pulling-off set (11) arranged between the referred plowing set (10) and chopper set (12) mounted upon a support frame (2) on wheels (7 and 8).

Abstract: A potato harvester has a lifting device for lifting soil ridges, wherein the lifting device has a digging device with digging shares. At least one support element for supporting the lifting device on the ground is provided. The at least one support element has at least two wheels that are movable along opposite sides of an intermediately positioned soil ridge, respectively. The wheels form a guide unit that supports at least one part of a weight of the at least one digging device, wherein the guide unit controls the digging shares and acts on a soil ridge to be lifted as an intake aid.

Abstract: An apparatus for extracting plant species of varying heights and varying diameters adapted to be mounted on a conventional land vehicle includes a frame and an extracting member rigidly attached to and extends outwardly from a bottom edge of the frame. The extracting member includes a first elongated extracting portion having a knife-like free end, a pair of second extracting portions each positioned adjacent a respective edge of the first elongated extracting portion and having a cutting edge formed generally perpendicular to the respective edge of the first elongated extracting portion, and a pair of third extracting portions each connecting an end of the cutting edge of the second extracting portion with a respective end of the bottom edge of the frame. A pair of elongated member are attached to the rear surface of the frame for attaching it to the land vehicle.

Abstract: The present invention is a system and method for removal of buried objects. According to one embodiment of the invention, a crane with a vibrator casing driver is used to lift and suspend a large diameter steel casing over the buried object. Then the casing is driven into the ground by the vibratory driver until the casing surrounds the buried object. Then the open bottom of the casing is sealed shut by injecting grout into the ground within the casing near its bottom. When the seal has cured and hardened, the top of the casing is lifted to retrieve the casing, with the buried object inside, from the ground.

Abstract: The present invention is a mechanical tree transplanting attachment that replaces the bucket of a loader-motor vehicle. The attachment is capable of excavating and planting a tree and root ball using a single hemispherical scoop with a fixture nestled within. The scoop rotates under the tree to excavate the tree and root ball. The fixture stops the root ball from rotating until the root ball is encompassed by the scoop and fixture. The loader-motor vehicle manipulates the attachment and tree from a ground contacting position to a transporting position. In this transporting position a tree is nearly horizontal with its root ball encompassed by the scoop and the fixture. When planting, the root ball is placed within a hole. The scoop passes from under the root ball while the fixture stops the root ball from rotating. The root ball is released from the scoop and fixture, planting the tree.

Abstract: A mechanical harvester for harvesting, topping and sacking bulb crops, such as onions. The harvester extracts the onions from the ground and transports them rearward to a cutting assembly by conveyor systems that drop out small onions, dirt, rocks and debris. The cutting assembly comprises a set of elongated cutting blades positioned to cooperatively accept and sever the leaves and roots from the bulb. The offal drops away from the harvester to the ground by manner of gravity. After cutting, the onions are transported through an inspection assembly for inspection, sorting, grading and further distribution. The onions are then transported rearward to a sacking assembly for placing the onions into sacks, to a chute device returning the onions to the ground or to a conveyor system transferring the onions to an adjacent vehicle. Platforms on the sides and ends of the harvester facilitate the above operations.

Abstract: A multiple rig row crop cultivator with first and second concave disks supported for operation at two different depths from adjacent rigs to provide two-step sizing of residue. The first disk, located ahead of the second disk, operates at a first depth in the soil to slice out the upper portions of roots and direct plant residue to the row middle. The second disk cuts to a depth approximately twice that of the first disk to further cut out root sections and move the root sections and other plant debris to the opposite row middle. After the disks move stalks and roots to the row middles, sweeps with ridging/bedding wings move the mixture of soil, stalks, and roots to the top of the bed to cover the groove made by the disks and preserve the original plant bed.

Abstract: The stems and limbs of a root crop plant are lifted from the ground, folded over a gathering bar, and grasped by an auger-paddle. The roots below the crop are severed by a cutter bar which resembles a rod weeder. While the crop is held the soil beneath the crop is pulled from the be in which the crop grows into a furrow on either side of the bed. As much as possible the root crop is cleaned as it is lifted up by the rotation of the paddle-auger while the limbs and stems of the plant are caught within the paddle-auger and held by the helicoil. After they are lifted free of the soil they are moved from two beds toward a furrow between those two beds and discharged in a windrow by a roller which rotates the opposite direction of the paddle-augers.

Abstract: A wagon pulled along a plant bed for retrieving buried drip tape includes a cultivator disc for loosening the soil to free the drip tape which is then drawn upward and onto the wagon through the use of a rotating drum that rotates at such a speed that its surface moves at the ground speed of the wagon. A wringer wheel that bears against the drum extracts water and air from the drip tape, which is then wound onto a reel under the control of an operator for subsequent storage and reuse. This mode of retrieval is considerably faster than manual retrieval thereby reducing labor cost, and the reuse of the drip tape saves disposal costs as well as material costs and results in conservation resources of the resources used in manufacturing the drip tape.

Abstract: A multi-crop harvester/windrower farm implement may be pushed before a tractor or harvester, to harvest and/or windrow a crop. The implement includes a frame having a plurality of horizontal arms at ground level, which support and position a crop dissociating structure to uproot or sever the stalks of the crop. The implement may include a crop reel to move the uprooted or severed crop to a draper belt, which deposits the crop in a windrow outward of the tractor wheels. In one embodiment, the crop dissociating structure includes interchangeable rod weeder and sickle attachments, allowing a user to choose between uprooting the crop, or severing the stalks of the crop. A plurality of adjustment structure may be included to adjust the altitude of the crop dissociating structure with respect to the crop, facilitating use of the implement on multiple crops. The rod weeder, crop reel, sickle, and draper belt may be driven to rotate by hydraulic motors attached to the PTO system of the tractor or harvester.

Abstract: Apparatus for extracting conduit buried in the ground includes a frame, rippers carried on the frame, and a take-up assembly mounted on the frame to draw the conduit from the ground while the apparatus is moving in a selected direction of travel. The rippers loosen the soil adjacent the conduit to enable the conduit to be easily pulled free from the ground. The take-up assembly includes a take-up roll and a plate adjacent one end of the take-up roll. The plates prevents conduit which is wound around the take-up roll from sliding off of the roll.

Abstract: A peanut vine digging and vine inverting apparatus is disclosed consisting of a plurality of diggers in the form of modified discs; a tap root cutter for each row of diggers and means for positioning the vines on the ground with the peanuts upwardly to be sun dried.

Abstract: An apparatus used in agriculture and more specifically to an apparatus for removing the plastic film cover from raised plant beds in which the edges thereof are tucked under soil placed in overlying relation to the downwardly inclined side edges of the plastic film thereby enabling separation of the plastic film from the plant bed after the plants have matured and the crop harvested from the plants so that the plastic film can be removed and appropriate cultivation and reshaping of the plant beds may be more effectively accomplished with the apparatus of the present invention materially reducing the time and labor required in removing the plastic film for disposal or recycling.

Abstract: Apparatus for removing upstanding plant stalks from the ground and for mulching the stalks. The apparatus includes simplified disk mechanisms which can be adapted both to cut and mulch plant stalks.

Abstract: A weeder for removing weeds in a golf course or the like has: a body to be moved along a ground surface; a weeding unit arranged such that a first winding transmission member mounted on the body has weed fetch rods arranged at predetermined intervals; a drive unit for driving the first winding transmission member; and a gripping unit consisting of a second winding transmission member brought into contact with the weeding unit mounted on the body, whereby a lowest contact line between the weeding unit and the gripping unit is defined as a start line of a contact start plane, and the start line is located in the vicinity of the ground surface. Cutters are mounted on each weed fetch rod of the weeding unit in a comb-like manner. The top of each cutter is located inside the top of the weed fetch rod when the weed fetch rod is rectilinearly moved. However, when the weed fetch rod is moved along an arcuated locus, the top of each cutter extends outside the top of the weed fetch rod.

Abstract: A digger for root crops, such as peanuts, includes two or more digger units depended from a frame drafted by a tractor. Each digger unit includes a screw conveyor, a guide pair helically wrapped 180.degree. around the screw conveyor, and a hydraulic motor to rotate the screw conveyor. Stem and leaf portions of the plants extending above the bed surface are engaged within and moved rearward by flights of the rotating screw conveyor. The stems slide within the helical guide slot, which lifts the peanuts from the soil, moves them outboard of the conveyor, and inverts the plants above the conveyor. The conveyors are angled to the direction of draft so that the inverted plants are discharged from the slots in a windrow on the center furrow between the dug beds. A roller between the conveyors forms a mound or hill in the center furrow to elevate the windrow above standing water.

Abstract: A harvester for bulb, root and leafy vegetable products including stationary blades (31, 32), rotatable discs (131, 132) or the like which are transported at an angle through opposite sides of a product plant bed to loosen the soil, cut the root system, and prepare the products for removal from the plant bed; a pair of opposing, rotatable belts (51, 51') which follow an inclined path and cooperate to define a product passageway therebetween, said belts (51, 51') defining a product lifting and transport section (41) in which adjustable, pressure pulleys (48, 48') ensure proper gripping pressure on the products, and a product orienting section (42) in which the products are transformed from a vertical to a horizontal disposition; support means (70) adjacent said product orienting section (42) for receiving tops of products oriented to a horizontal disposition; and conveyor means (75) adjacent an end of said product passageway for receiving freed, horizontally disposed product.

Abstract: A peanuts harvester includes a truck body, plant row dividers, stalk straighteners, peanut diggers, a plant feeder, a tilted conveyer, a horizontal conveyer, a peanut stripper and a peanut collector such that the dug peanut plants are conveyed to the horizontal conveyer where the upper stalks are held by the conveyer and the lower peanuts on roots are stripped by the peanut stripper, whereby the stripped peanuts are screened, cleaned and collected into bags for efficient integrated harvesting of peanuts.

Abstract: An apparatus for uprooting and shredding cotton plants after harvest includes a below ground cutting blade having a forward cutting edge inclined rearwardly and to one side of the implement, which blade cooperates with an oppositely inclined above ground trash bar to uproot cotton plants and deposit them on the ground transversely of the direction of travel of the apparatus.

Abstract: A machine for cutting shrubs and other plants from the soil and for lifting them with their root balls intact to deposit them upon the ground or in a previously formed hole for transplanting, comprises a support mounted on the three-point hitch of a tractor and provided with a spade or blade which can be drawn downwardly below the shrub by forward movement of the tractor and then rotated through 360.degree. to free the root ball from the surrounding soil. The support also carries an arm which can engage the root neck, stalk, trunk or stem of the shrub to hold and displace it independently of the blade-carrying structure.

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.

Abstract: A row crop harvester is provided with mechanism for mounting two picking heads for both vertical and horizontal adjustment of the ground engaging lower ends of the heads, to simultaneously harvest two rows of plants which may vary in spacing from each other throughout their lengths. One head is guided along its row by steering the harvester itself, while the lower end of the other head is guided along its row by selectively operating controls which transversely shift the lower end of the head relative to the first mentioned steerable head thereby accurately following and simultaneously harvesting two rows of crops such as root crops.In the preferred embodiment the upper end of each picking head is associated with a severing mechanism for removing the tops or foliage from the roots of the plants.

Abstract: A root and stalk shredder having a frame, a pair of longitudinally extending, parallel, power driven lifting rollers rotatably mounted on the frame and extending longitudinally parallel to a path of travel of the shredder, guide means mounted on the frame forward of the rollers in the direction of movement of the shredder for guiding stalks between the rollers, a blade assembly mounted on the frame over the rollers and operatively associated with the rollers for cutting roots and stalks lifted by the rollers, and a plow assembly mounted on the frame and provided with a fin assembly for facilitating use of the shredder to re-shape a bed being cleared. A bed re-shaping assembly is mounted at the rear end of the shredder frame for covering over shredded crop residue deflected down into the bed by a deflector shield also arranged at the rear of the shredder frame.