Abstract: A harvester for collecting fruit such as tomatoes and sorting the tomatoes into acceptable or good tomatoes and culls. The tomatoes including their vines are gathered from the ground and pass rearwardly and upwardly on the harvester to a shaking station where the tomatoes are separated from the vines and other foreign objects. The vines are discharged while the tomatoes are directed to sorting belts disposed laterally of the harvester. The tomatoes are aligned into a plurality of parallel tomato rows of serially arranged tomatoes. The rows are simultaneously moved at a constant speed in a downstream direction past a detection station where each tomato in each row is optically inspected and a reject signal is generated for each cull passing the station. Thereafter, a force is applied to an underside of each cull in response to a reject signal. The force ejects the culls along an inclined trajectory path extending generally upwardly and in a downstream direction from the tomato rows.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
September 17, 1975
Date of Patent:
May 30, 1978
Assignee:
Robert L. Button
Inventors:
Robert L. Button, deceased, Antone J. Turkovich