Patent ID: 6848243
Filing Date: 2005-02-01
Classification: A01D

Abstract:
1. A method of continuously harvesting grain from at least one row of mature grain plants growing in first row segments and intermittently interrupted by an alley segment where no grain plants exist, comprising: straddling the row with a wheel-mounted harvester having a harvesting head to remove grain from the grain plants in the row and delivering the removed grain upwardly and rearwardly for deposit in a grain handling assembly comprised of a plurality of grain moving parts for delivery of the removed grain to a grain collection hopper with separate collection bins, supplying power means on the harvester for operating the harvesting head and the grain moving parts and for permitting the harvester to selectively continuously move longitudinally over the row segments and the alley segments between the row segments, control means on the combine for selectively interrupting at least one of the grain moving parts as soon as the last plant in a first row segment is harvested so that no new harvested grain from a second and next adjacent row segment will be commingled with the harvested grain from the first row segment, and causing harvested grain from the second row segment to temporarily accumulate adjacent the grain moving part that is temporarily stopped, and actuating the power means to restart the stopped grain moving part after a period while the harvesting head is harvesting plants in the second row segment, and transporting the harvested grain from separate row segments into the separate collection bins to permit the separate evaluation of the harvested grain in each row segment, moving the harvester along the row at a continuous and constant rate of speed to avoid the necessity of stopping the combine at each alley to effect the separate evaluation of the harvested grain from aligned separate row segments in all row segments adjacent each alley.