Mechanical buncher for leafy vegetables

US4400983A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• The United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture · US

Inventors

• Donald L. Peterson · San Fernando, US
• Ajit Srivastava · Atlanta, US
• Galen K. Brown · Okemos, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Apr 28, 1981
• Grant date: Aug 30, 1983
• Expiry date: Apr 28, 2001

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y10T74/18256
• WIPO field: Handling
• WIPO sector: Mechanical engineering

Abstract

An automatic vegetable buncher for use in combination with a mechanical harvester of leafy green vegetables conveys the greens to a packing station where a pair of packer fingers driven by a novel rectangular motion generator incrementally feeds the greens into one of a plurality of pockets mounted on a rotatable wheel. When a predetermined bunch size is accrued, the wheel rotates to position an empty pocket at the packing station and to advance the vegetable bunch to a device which ties it into a marketable bundle.