| 摘要 |
A device for spreading plants, such as tomato vines, generally across the width of an interior chamber of a conventional harvester, such as a tomato harvester, after the vines have been cut from their root systems in a field, fed onto a forward end of a driven inclined chain belt conveyor, pivotally carried on a front end of the harvester, and discharged into a harvester chamber for processing, such as removing the tomatoes from the vines, cleaning, sorting, etc., by existing conventional means. The spreader device comprises a pair of chain conveyors, each comprised of a pair of spaced apart sprockets, rotatably mounted relative to opposed ends of an elongated support member, a chain engaged about the sprockets and extending therebetween, and a plurality of outwardly extending, spaced apart fingers, fixed to the chain at their inner ends along the length of the chain. The pair of chain conveyors are adjustably carried on a beam bridging an upper rear end portion of the chain belt conveyor in a rearwardly diverging angular relation, in positions for their fingers to engage the vines just prior to their discharge into the interior chamber of the harvester, to laterally spread the vines relative to their diverging relationship.
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