Potato Digger-Windrower

a machine for digging out potato tubers and putting them in windrows.

The principal working parts of the UKV-2 machine used in the USSR are trapezoidal shares for digging up two rows of potatoes, a rod-link elevator with forced shaking of the dug-up bulk matter, pneumatic rollers for breaking up clods of earth, conveyors for removing tops, and a transverse conveyor for placing the tubers in windrows. The working parts of the machine are driven by a takeoff shaft from the tractor engine.

With the several-stage method of harvesting, the potato digger-windrower digs up two rows of potatoes, removing the dirt and tops from the tubers and placing them in a windrow. During the second and third passes the machine puts the tubers on the windrow formed on the first pass. It is possible to put tubers dug from four or six rows in a common windrow. Then the windrow is picked up by a potato harvesting combine. With combine harvesting, on the frist pass of the digger-windrower the tubersare placed between two undug rows. When these rows are harvested by the combine it picks up the previously deposited windrow at the same time. The productivity of the digger-windrower is 2–4 hectares per shift.