Patent ID: 8024914

Claim:
A drag cotton harvester operated by an independent driving unit, comprising: a stripper cotton picker platform comprising wheels that allow the picker platform to be dragged laterally offset with respect to the whole width of the independent driving unit wherein the picker platform picks crops from high density cotton fields where rows of cotton plants are separated by less than 50 cm and wherein the picker platform has a series of elastically mounted rigid metal fingers aligned parallel to the forward direction of the harvester, wherein the front ends of the fingers are close to ground level and the back ends thereof are ramped in an upward direction wherein each elastically mounted rigid metal finger has a V-shaped cross section extending from the front end to the back end thereof and wherein the metal fingers are spaced apart by gaps between adjacent fingers in an adjacent arrangement such that the series of fingers comprise combs to pick cotton from narrow rows separated by less than 50 cm, and a rotary cylinder of flexible radial blades that propels cotton bolls into a groove with a spiral conveyor that conveys cotton bolls to a tube through which they are lifted by an air stream or by an elevator pump; a cleaning apparatus to receive harvested cotton from the picker platform, the cleaning apparatus comprising a set of rotary dentate cylinders that engage the cotton and remove the heavy masses or impurities therefrom, the cleaning apparatus comprising a rotary brush that is arranged tangential to the dentate cylinders to disengage clean cotton from the rotary dentate cylinders therein, a spiral conveyor that gathers the clean cotton and passes it on to an upward air stream, which propels it in an upward direction that, through a tube, discharges it into a trailer that receives the clean cotton from the cleaning apparatus, for storage and transport.