A mobile hop harvester and processor apparatus comprising:
- a mobile main chassis with a forward end and a rearward end, a first side located substantially in a parallel to a forward travel direction toward the forward end and a second side located substantially in a parallel to the forward travel direction, and a centerline located substantially in parallel to the forward travel direction at a mid-way between the first side and the second side;
- a bine processing table supported on the mobile main chassis, and the bine processing table for receiving a bine of a hop plant from a trellis in a hop yard;
- a cutting tower that extends upwardly from the mobile main chassis, the cutting tower tilt-able on a tower pivot, with the tower pivot located on the mobile main chassis, proximate to the forward end, and the cutting tower tilt-able on the tower pivot upward and toward the forward end in a tower raising movement about the tower pivot to raise the cutting tower up to a raised tower position with the cutting tower at the full height of the trellis in the hop yard in the raised tower position, and the cutting tower position-able proximate to a plant top of the hop plant;
- the cutting tower having a multiple of cutters, the multiple of cutters including a top-beam cutter located proximate to an upper tower end of the cutting tower, a lower-beam cutter located proximate to a lowest portion of the cutting tower proximate to the tower pivot, and the cutting tower cuts the bines received into the bine processing table into a multiple of bine segments;
- a retarder frame supported beneath the bine conveyor of the bine processing table, and the retarder frame the bine conveyor tilts on table pivot that is located proximate the forward end of the mobile main chassis;
- the bine conveyor inclined upward to the rearward end of the mobile main chassis, with a lower bine conveyor end proximate to the forward end of the mobile main chassis and forward of the tower pivot, and the bine conveyor inclined upward to an upper bine conveyor end located proximate to the rearward end of the mobile main chassis and the retarder frame over a picking frame that sets upon the mobile main chassis, with the retarder frame including a multiple of retarder rollers and the picking frame including a multiple of picking rollers, and the retarder frame and the multiple of retarder rollers along with the picking frame and the multiple of picking rollers together comprise a picking array;
- the multiple of bine segments produced by the cutting tower fall onto the bine conveyor, and the bine conveyor transports the multiple of bine segments upward and to the upper bine conveyor end to a bine conveyor discharge;
- the bine conveyor discharges the multiple of bine segments into a bine picker infeed of the picking array, with the multiple of picking rollers positioned beneath the multiple of retarding rollers, and the multiple of bine segments travel between the picking rollers and the retarding rollers so that the hop cones are picked from the multiple of bine segments and fall downward out of the picking array;
- and
- a residual debris retained between the retarding rollers and picking rollers, the residual debris substantially every element of the multiple of bine segments excluding the hop cones, and the residual debris ejected from the picking array between the picking roller and the retarding roller at a debris discharge located proximate to the forward end of the mobile main chassis.