Carrot harvester
# Carrot harvester

A Carrot Harvester is an agricultural machine for harvesting carrots. Carrot harvesters are either top lifters or share lifters and may be tractor mounted, trailed behind a tractor or self-propelled. The machine typically harvests between one and six rows of carrots at once.

## Operation

The two types of harvesters differ in how they get the carrots from the ground.

### Top lifting harvesters

Top lifters use rubber belts to grab the green tops of the carrot plant and pull them from the soil. A share pushes under the carrot root and loosens the plant.

The belt takes the carrots, with tops, in to the machine where the tops are cut off and sent along a waste path and dropped back on to the field.

### Share lifting harvesters

A share lifter uses a share to get the carrots out of the ground from underneath. The machine must be preceded by a topper to cut the green tops off the carrot plants. The carrots travel along a longer web to separate out the soil.

### Cleaning and collection

The carrot roots travel along one or more webs to remove most of the soil attached to the carrot. The carrots are collected either in a storage tank on the machine (called a "Bunker") or in a trailer pulled alongside the machine by another tractor.

