Patent ID: 7980048

Claim:
A harvesting mechanism for harvesting tobacco plants, the harvesting mechanism comprising: a magazine of rails, each rail being elongated and hollow, with a slot along a bottom portion of the rail, and opposing ends; two opposing dispensing conveyors each engaging each opposing end of each rail in a top row of rails from the magazine of rails for advancing an empty rail to a filling position; two opposing notching conveyors, each of the opposing notching conveyors having links for grasping the plants, and each of the opposing notching conveyors having a stack of rotating blades for cutting notches into the plants on opposing sides of the plant; a single roller chain stepping conveyor with tine attachments for moving the plants from the opposing notching conveyors into a rail in the filling position in alignment with the single roller chain stepping conveyor; wherein the two opposing dispensing conveyors advance the rail filled with plants; and an unloading conveyor having opposing roller chains for receiving rails filled with plants advanced by the two opposing dispensing conveyors, for collecting a group of filled rails, and for unloading the group of filled rails on a ground level at a linear speed equal to a forward speed of the harvesting mechanism.