Home-made Potato Bagger

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 79, Issue 6, 15 December 1949, Page 585

Home-made Potato Bagger

By

A. J. EBERT,

Assistant Fields Instructor, Department of Agriculture,

Christchurch.

BECAUSE of the acute shortage of labour for picking potatoes last season, many more farmers will be considering attaching bagging machines to their diggers for lifting next season’s crop. The mechanical digger-baggers which can be purchased are expensive for a farmer who is growing only about 20 acres of potatoes and, unless a considerable amount of contract work is offering, a grower who does not produce on a large scale will find that buying a machine ties up too much money. The high prices of manufactured digger-baggers have induced some farmers to build their own baggers, and this article describes how one farmer designed and built suitable equipment.

IN designing and building a bagger many problems have to be overcome. The varying soil conditions under which the machine has to operate and the varying amounts of stones, weeds, and haulms with which it has to cope must be taken into account; whether table and seed potatoes are to go in together or table potatoes are to be picked off on the machine must also be considered. A Hororata farmer, Mr. W. Oakley, has built himself a machine which seems to have overcome most of the problems mentioned. It is a bagger on which the table potatoes are picked out from the seed on the machine. Construction and Operation Potatoes are dug by a digger which has had the back apron raised so that it feeds on to the bagger. The latter has one main canvas elevator about 3ft. wide, which carries everything that comes off the digger. Three men stand

each side of this conveyer; the first pair (on opposite sides of the conveyer) pick off the table potatoes and put them on to a conveyer belt which runs across and under the main canvas elevator to an elevator on one side which leads to the back of the machine where the potatoes are bagged. The 2 men also pick off the bigger weeds and haulms. This leaves clods, stones, some weeds, and all potatoes under table size on the main elevator. The seed potatoes are picked off by the next 2 men (one on either side of the elevator) and put into 2 small elevators which run up alongside the main elevator and thence to the bags. The material remaining on the canvas is returned to the ground. The remaining 2 operators stand on the bagging. platform, running across the rear of the machine, on which there is ample room for them to handle the bags from the . 3 bag holes —1 for table potatoes and 2 for seed.

Table potatoes are picked off first, as this eliminates further handling and the possibility of damage. On this farm, which produces Certified seed, all the seed is picked off and graded later into the respective sizes of under-

grade, 2-40 z., and 4-6 oz. The last size is picked out only if there is a demand for large-size seed; otherwise tubers within this range are taken off as table potatoes. The digger is driven from the power take-off of the tractor, but the drive for the bagger is taken off one of its own wheels so that the whole outfit is under the control of the ■ tractor driver. Materials Used The chassis of the bagger is made from an old truck and all the framework of steel sheets that were formerly parts of old petrol pumps. The elevators, other than the canvas one, are made from chains fitted at intervals with wooden cross-pieces, which carry the potatoes to their respective sacks. Few Hold-ups As there is a minimum of working parts, there are few hold-ups caused . by breakages, which would be serious,

as 8 men would be idle until repairs could be effected. Though a large number of men is required „to operate the bagger, it is not ■ difficult to get the assistance of neighbouring farmers, who, though they may not be prepared for the onerous job of picking up potatoes off the ground, are willing to work on the bagger and by thus co-operating get their own potatoes dug. . In England various ' digging and bagging combinations are being tried, with varying degrees of success. They aim at cutting to a minimum, the manpower required for harvesting and even have devices such as automatic stone removers; but they do not separate the potatoes into . seed and table grades . and that work must be done later. A machine similar to that built by Mr. Oakley, which will dig about 30 tons a day, could be built by other growers who have sufficient mechanical knowledge and who do not wish to rely on potato pickers.