Abstract: A sugar cane harvester primary extractor apparatus is provided for separating cane crop leafy trash material from a harvested stream of conveyed cut billets. The apparatus is used with chopper cane harvesters wherein cane billets are fed continuously into a cleaning chamber in the form of a hollow housing interior of the extractor and a powered extractor fan directed air and leafy trash exiting the cleaning chamber upwardly. Air intakes are in the form of a plurality of side air intake openings each having correspondingly placed vertically extended louver plates angled inwardly of the housing outer wall, each of the side openings and louver plates being spaced along the housing wall beginning at a first position adjacent the cane billet feed inlet and extending rearwardly therefrom toward the middle of the extractor housing.