A ground clearing vehicle (1) has a mobile chassis (2) mounted on tracks (3). Plant handling apparatus (4) is mounted on the chassis (2) and is operable for gripping and pulling a plant from the ground, and in particular a pineapple plant, removing stones and soil from the roots of the plant and chopping up the plant material. A driver's cab (5) is mounted on the chassis (2) above the plant handling apparatus (4) from which the operation of the vehicle (1) is controlled. The plant handling apparatus (4) includes a plant grabbing apparatus (7) which is operable to grip and pull a plant from the ground. The plant is then delivered to a stone separator (8) before being delivered by an infeed conveyor (9) to a chopper (10) for chopping up the plant material which is then discharged clear of the vehicle (1 ) by means of a chopper discharge chute (11). The plant grabbing apparatus (7) comprises a stacked pair of spaced-apart contra-rotating pick-up conveyors comprising a lower pick-up conveyor (14) and an upper pick-up conveyor (15) for gripping a plant therebetween.
Ground Clearing vehicle
2019-03-27
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
Emerald Group Publishing | 1949