US 4,204,491 AGranted

Mobile planting apparatus

AssigneeMassey-Ferguson Services N.V.

InventorDonald J. Quick

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Abstract

Apparatus for automatically planting billets of sugar cane as produced by a chopper-type sugar cane harvester, comprises a hopper for billets, an elevator to convey billets upwards and out of the hopper, and a billet delivery chute to receive the billets from the elevator and deliver them to a furrow in the ground. The elevator has at least two series of staggered slats which meter the billets. The delivery chute has a funnel-shaped upper portion and a trough-shaped downwardly and rearwardly-sloping lower portion, which guide and channel the billets in an endwise flow towards the furrow. The lower end of the chute is positioned close to or in contact with the ground so that billets can engage the ground before they leave the chute whereby billets can build up at the lower end of the chute and be discharged into the furrow at a rate corresponding to the forward speed of the planter.

Claims5

Dependent claims

A mobile planting apparatus characterized by a frame including a rear main frame section, a front frame section and pivot means connecting the front frame section to the rear main frame section including a vertical pivot means and a horizontal fore and aft pivot means;

ground engaging wheels attached to the rear main frame section;
hitch means attached to the front frame section;
a furrow opener attached to the front frame section;
a billet supply hopper mounted on the rear main frame section with a billet elevator conveyor forming at least a portion of one wall of the billet supply hopper;
and a billet delivery and alignment chute means including a primary billet delivery and alignment chute with an upper end mounted on the upper end of the billet elevator conveyor, a generally flat downwardly and forwardly inclined floor with decreasing width from the upper end, side flanges inclined upwardly and outwardly from each side of at least a portion of the downwardly inclined floor and a lower exit end of the primary billet delivery and alignment chute positioned adjacent a vertical axis formed by the vertical pivot means, and a downwardly and rearwardly inclined secondary billet delivery and alignment chute mounted on the front frame section with an upper end adjacent the lower exit end of the primary billet delivery and alignment chute and a lower end adjacent the furrow opener.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.