A new floating spear mechanism for impaling burley tobacco plants onto a wooden stick

A unique floating spear mechanism has been developed to mechanically impale and convey harvested burley plants onto a conventional wooden stick. The m echanism alleviates the tedious human task of manually impaling fresh cut p lants onto standing sticks. The mechanism utilizes three sets of opposed ar ms. The arms are in a common vertical plane with a longitudinal metal bar a nd at a 45 degrees angle to the bar to engage and firmly hold it. One end o f the bar is pointed to spear the plants as they are conveyed by parallel c hains and centered on the point by a pair of small interconnected wheels wi th guide belts. The hydraulically activated arms open and close in sequence to allow the plant to move along the spear-bar at the rate of one plant pe r two seconds and be deposited at the opposite end onto a wooden stick nest ed in a holder. The mechanism has been incorporated into a self-propelled p rototype harvester that has undergone two years of field testing and refine ment.