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Growing a good potato crop is only half the battle. There is no less difficult work ahead related to harvesting tubers. Dig potatoes hard. If the country garden is no more than two or three acres, then you can do it with a bayonet shovel. In large areas, digging potatoes with a walk-behind tractor significantly simplifies the harvesting process. The equipment itself will handle digging up the tubers. All you have to do is control the motorized cultivator and harvest the crop behind it.
Benefits of using gardening equipment
Gardeners who have not mastered the technique well are afraid to dig potatoes with walk-behind tractors for fear of harming the crop. In fact, these fears are not in vain. If the machine with additional equipment is not configured correctly, digging up the crop will end with cut tubers.
The simplest potato digger is bent at a slight angle. When does it start harvesting potatoes, the tilt of the plow is adjusted until the optimal depth of penetration is achieved. Properly adjusted equipment moves easily through the garden and very rarely cuts tubers.
When we dig potatoes walk-behind tractor, we get the following advantages:
- First of all, digging potatoes with a walk-behind tractor is much easier than doing it by hand. Moreover, you save not only energy, but also your own time.
- Only harvesting potatoes with a walk-behind tractor allows us to quickly extract the crop from the ground before the approach of bad weather.
- The harvest is extracted from the ground as much as possible. Losses during mechanized harvesting are small.
Gardening equipment makes the hard work of a gardener easier, and you need to be friends with it.
Proper setup of equipment is the key to successful harvesting
Harvesting potatoes walk-behind tractor Neva or any other motor cultivator is performed in the same way. The machine is used only as a traction mechanism. Of course, the speed of harvesting depends on the power of the unit, but the main adjustment is made on the towed device.
The photo shows a simple fan plow. The pointed nose cuts the layer of earth and throws the tubers onto curved rods, the entire crop remains on the surface of the earth.
A series of holes are drilled on the potato digger rod. These are what are needed for adjustment. By moving the trailing mechanism up or down along the holes, the angle of inclination of the cutting nose is changed. The greater its slope, the deeper the potato digger will sink into the ground while the walk-behind tractor moves.
Experienced machine operators make devices that allow them to narrow and widen the distance between the wheels of a walk-behind tractor. This allows you to adjust the row spacing at the stage landings tubers. Naturally, digging potatoes with a walk-behind tractor becomes easier. With the wheels wide apart, the likelihood of tubers getting under them is reduced.
The video provides an overview of the fan model of the trailing mechanism:
Design varieties of potato diggers
In principle, you can dig potatoes with a walk-behind tractor not only using a fan potato digger. There are many models of factory-made and home-made trailer mechanisms. Let's look at the three main commonly used potato diggers and how they work:
- A vibrating potato digger consists of a sieve and a ploughshare. When we dig potatoes with a walk-behind tractor, the trailing mechanism vibrates. The ploughshare cuts the layer of earth along with the potatoes, and then directs it onto the grate. Due to vibration, the soil wakes up through the sieve, and the tubers roll down the rods and remain on the surface of the earth. This type of potato harvesting with a walk-behind tractor is considered the most productive, but requires complex adjustment of the trailed mechanism.
- The conveyor-type trailing mechanism operates on the principle of a vibration model. When we dig potatoes with a walk-behind tractor, the soil is similarly cut with a ploughshare, after which it goes to a special site along with the tubers. On the conveyor, the soil and tops are sifted out and only the clean crop remains, held by the hooking device. The conveyor model is more reliable and easier to use, but is sensitive to soil density.
- Fan potato digger also called a lancet mechanism, since the nose of the plow resembles the tip of an arrow.With a correctly adjusted slope, the spout cuts the soil, and the crop flies out to the side along the rods, from which a fan is welded behind the boom. The mechanism is simple, reliable and can be used on difficult soils. The main thing is that the machine has enough power.
Walk-behind tractors and walk-behind cultivators are available for sale. The first type of machines has more functions and they are much more powerful. Motorized cultivators are weaker, so they are more designed for loosening soil. But these units can also be used as a traction mechanism when digging up crops on soft soil.
As you can see, digging potatoes with a Neva walk-behind tractor or a unit of another brand occurs in the same way. The only difference is the towing mechanism.
