Patent ID: 7644566

Claim:
An apparatus for directing crop movement in a windrowing header for an agricultural crop harvester, the header having a forward facing crop intake for receiving a standing crop, the intake being bounded by generally opposing side walls and an upper panel spanning therebetween, a forward skirt connected to said upper panel and positioned in said forward facing crop intake, a cutter opening being disposed rearwardly from the crop intake, the cutter opening being bounded by the side walls, an upper panel support structure, and a bottom edge spanning between the side walls to define a cutter width, a cutterbar disposed along the bottom edge for severing a standing crop from the ground, and a rearward discharge for depositing cut crop material on the ground in a windrow, the rearward discharge having a width substantially less than the header width, the apparatus comprising: a flexible curtain connected to the upper panel support structure and extending downwardly into the cutter opening, the flexible curtain having a surface area defined by an upper edge, a lower edge, and a pair of generally opposing side edges, said side edges being positioned adjacent to the side walls, each side edge having a length defining a curtain length, said lower edge being positioned adjacent to and directly above the cutterbar when no crop is being engaged by the cutterbar and whereby said flexible curtain deflects rearwardly when said flexible curtain interacts with the crop material as the header is moved through the standing crop to direct severed crop material to the rearward discharge.