Sweet Potato Harvester Machine

Sweet Potato Harvester Machine

Sweet potato production has doubled in the United States over the past 15 years.sweet potato harvester machine And it's tripled in North Carolina, which produces more than half the country's crop. For farmers like Jimmy Burch, that means plenty of work. This year, he's running out of wooden pallets and bins to store his bounty of sweet potatoes.

"Sweet potatoes are a major industry," says Burch, who owns a family-owned farm in rural Faison, NC.sweet potato harvester machine His crop is huge, and this morning he's making phone calls looking for more equipment to help him bring it in.

Whether a farmer is digging a few dozen or several hundred pounds of sweet potatoes, the process starts with a tractor. The machine pulls a set of steel disks through the vine-covered field, turns the soil upside down and exposes a bounty. That's when the real work begins, and it takes a lot of people to finish the job.

To harvest a large volume, growers need a fast, efficient harvester. That's why a number of companies have developed machines designed specifically to dig and separate sweet potatoes from the dirt. These machines are called "potato diggers," and they come in a variety of sizes and models designed for use on small farms and on larger operations.

A typical mechanical potato digger consists of a tractor that's either towable or self-propelled. At the front of the machine, a blade known as a share or digging share cuts into the ridge that runs along the side of each potato row and lifts a mixture of soil and crops onto the machine. The mixture is then deposited onto a conveyor system, commonly called a digger chain or belt. Rollers or screens separate the potatoes from the dirt, while blowers or air jets remove heavier debris such as leaves or vines.

The separated potatoes are then transferred to a holding bin or hopper on the machine, from which they're loaded into a truck driving alongside or unloaded at the edge of the field. Some machines also include a cleaning device that further removes residual soil from the potatoes, improving their quality.

Once the sweet potatoes are dug, they go into climate-controlled storage barns for a few weeks to cure. That allows the sugar in the roots to turn from starch into sugar, which makes them sweeter. It also helps prevent the sweet potatoes from splitting and rotting during transport. Home gardeners can partially replicate this curing process by spreading the sweet potatoes on a screen in a protected outdoor location for a week or two. The key is to keep the roots moist so they don't dry out or split.

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