Patent ID: 8499938

Claim:
A separation and cleaning process for harvested ground fruit comprising the steps of: subjecting an entire harvested ground fruit crop load to a first separation step on a cleaning table, whereby ground fruit of and below a set size, soil, stones, clods, stems, grasses and other debris fall through the cleaning table as fall-through burden; subjecting the fall-through burden to a second separation step using a continuous-loop, pintle belt conveyor having a conveying surface provided by pintle tips, a conveyance path and a conveyance vector, in combination with a spinning shear roller positioned immediately adjacent but not in contact with said conveying surface, said shear roller having an axis of rotation that is both parallel to said conveying surface and non-orthogonal to said vector of conveyance, and a direction of rotation that resists entry of conveyed objects between the roller and said conveying surface, whereby said conveyance path is blocked for small ground fruits and clods by said spinning shear roller, which moves the small ground fruits on an exit path oblique to said conveyance vector and breaks up large clods into small clods and soil particles, and whereby soil particles, small clods, stones, vine stems, grasses, and other debris fall between pintles of the pintle belt conveyor, pass beneath said spinning shear roller, and are discarded.