Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | They did take the field and are finishing up right now.
Here's a couple of pictures for those not familiar with the Pea Harvest. The Pea combines or harvesters have a rotating drum with rake like teeth on the front to "strip" the pea pods from the vines. Ideally only pods would enter the threshing unit but there is always some other debris.
The threshing unit consists of a large rotating cylinder which runs from the front to the back of the machine. Inside this cylinder there is a shaft with paddles on it that is rotating in the opposite direction. As the pods enter the chamber they are hit by the paddles and the peas separate from the pods. The loose peas and pods tumble around inside the chamber. The outside of the chamber was made out of a fish net like material in the old days. Ideally the loose peas leave the chamber but the pods remain inside and eventually exit out of the back of the machine.
The loose peas and small pieces of debris drop on a conveyor which runs the full length of the chamber. It is made out of a smooth belt like material. This conveyor is mounted at a fairly steep angle and runs uphill. The idea being that the round peas will roll down the conveyor even as it is turning in an upward direction. The debris would not roll down the conveyor and would be deposited back in the field. The peas are conveyed to a hopper where they are dumped into a dump cart. The dump cart collects peas from each machine and dumps them into a truck to be taken to the plant in town.
Self Propelled pea combines of this style came into use in my area in the early '60s. Prior to that the peas were cut with various sickle type machines and formed into windrows. These windrows were picked up with a pea loader pulled by a tractor and loaded onto single axle trucks. The truck took the vines to a Pea Vinery setup. These were typically 1-4 machines that were semi-permanently setup in a farmers field. The trucks dumped the pea vines on the ground in front of the Pea Viners and laborers pitched them into the machine with a four tine pitch fork. The threshing process was as described above. Since the waste consisted of the pods, vines and weeds, the volume was significant. This waste was stacked in a central stack and each grower got his "share". This would ferment and had a very distinctive smell. It was typical to feed this to Milk cows and young stock.
Edited by tedbear 7/1/2020 13:01
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Anyone else have trouble posting pics today?
