Low-trellis mobile hop picker

A machine for picking hops from vines growing in a row on a relatively short trellis, said trellis rows including vertical posts and joining horizontal wires for supporting the hop vines growing upwardly on both sides of said trellis, said hop picker machine, comprising:

• a wheel-mounted frame that straddles a portion of a hop vine trellis row;
• an engine mounted upon said frame for propelling said picker along said trellis row and operating said hop picker;
• a hop picking bank mounted upon said frame, said picking bank comprising a pair of substantial vertically oriented conveyors adjustably spaced from one another to accommodate said trellis and contact hop vines straddled by said frame, each picking bank conveyor including upwardly moving surfaces upon which are fixed a plurality of hop picking hooks that pull hops from the vines and a plurality of tines projecting from said surfaces to rake and separate the vines to prevent matting of the vines during picking;
• a pair of hop collecting conveyors mounted upon said frame, each below and in alignment with a picking conveyor, said collecting conveyors collecting hops as they fall downwardly after being picked,said conveyors transporting the collected hops rearwardly with respect to said hop picker;
• and
• a pair of elevating conveyors that receive the hops from the collecting conveyors and elevate them substantially vertically for transfer from said hop picker.