Deere & Company
Harvesting machine having a secondary cleaning system

Abstract:

A separator for a crop harvester configured to harvest sugarcane. The separator includes a frame having: i) an inlet configured to receive cut sugarcane, wherein the cut sugarcane includes cut stalk and crop residue, ii) a cut stalk outlet configured to discharge the cut stalk from the frame; and iii) a crop residue outlet. An extractor is operatively connected to the crop residue outlet. The extractor includes a tapered nozzle disposed adjacently to the crop residue outlet and a fan disposed adjacently to the tapered nozzle, wherein the tapered nozzle is configured to provide a pressure differential between the crop residue outlet and the fan in response to air flow provide by the fan. The tapered nozzle, in one embodiment, is a truncated cone having a smaller end disposed adjacently to a flow of cut crop, wherein the fan draws air through the truncated cone to separate the crop residue from the cut stalk.