Crop harvesting machine with improved pickup reel assembly

In combination with a grain and bean harvesting machine of the type intended for transverse mounting in front of a mobile thresher and including a main supporting frame, a contoured horizontal platform supported from the lower part of said frame, a cutter bar assembly flexibly mounted to the leading edge of said horizontal platform, a rotating cross auger supported on said frame at the rear of said platform, a feeder conveyor supported on said frame aft of said auger, said conveyor providing for the transfer of crop cuttings from said auger to said mobile thresher, and a reel assembly rotatably mounted on adjustable arms supporting said reel from said frame above said horizontal platform adjacent the front thereof, with said reel assembly having a plurality of bat sections along its periphery, each of said bat sections carrying a multiplicity of reel tines for picking up down grain, the improvement which comprises:

• a plurality of flexible flaps, each comprising a sheet of flexible material, and
• means connecting said flaps to selected ones of a small fraction of said tines, said flaps being longitudinally spaced and angularly staggered on said bats, the spacing and staggering of said flaps providing for the sweeping of substantially the entire width of said platform, the outward extending edges of said flexible flap sections, which are connected to the tines occupying the lowest horizontal position, contacting the contoured horizontal platform over which said reel assembly rotates whereby loose kernels of grain are brushed into said rotating cross auger at least once per each revolution of said reel assembly.