Seed loading and transport apparatus

An apparatus for loading, transporting and unloading bags of seed, said apparatus comprising:

• a movable trailer including a generally horizontal trailer bed having a front end and an opposed rear end;
• a frame superstructure removably mounted on the trailer including a forward arch and a rearward arch disposed adjacent the front end and the rear end of said trailer bed respectively, said forward arch and said rearward arch each including a pair of depending spaced apart vertical legs connected by an upper horizontal member, said frame superstructure further including at least one elongated transport beam including a forward portion extending between and interconnecting the upper horizontal members of the forward arch and the rearward arch disposed in spaced overlying relation to the trailer bed and a rearward portion extending outwardly rearwardly from the rearward arch and the rear end of the trailer bed, each vertical leg on the front arch and the rear arch including an outwardly projecting jack plate positioned for allowing jacks to engage the jack plates to raise and lower the frame superstructure off of and onto said trailer, respectively;
• a translator movably mounted on the transport beam and capable of reciprocal movement along the transport beam between the forward portion and the rearward portion of the transport beam;
• a lifter on the translator including a bag grabber portion capable of securely engaging a seed bag, the lifter being capable of reciprocally moving the bag grabber portion in a substantially vertical direction toward and away from the translator;
• at least one hopper removably mounted on the trailer bed and disposed below the transport beam to receive seed from a seed bag positioned thereover by the lifter and translator;
• at least one seed mover capable of moving seed from the hopper including a seed receiving end and a seed delivery end, the seed delivery end being positionable at a location spaced from the trailer;
• and
• a controller operatively connected to the translator, the lifter and the seed mover and capable of actuating and directing reciprocal movement of the translator along the transport beam, reciprocal vertical movement of the bag grabber with respect to the translator and operation of the seed mover between a seed delivering on condition and a seed delivering off condition.