Anyone see one of these ?

[AllisPhreak 0]

The past couple years have gotten to be a drag, seriously a drag, harvesting my 1 acre of potatoes by hand. I was wondering if anyone had seen one of these :

http://www.history.rochester.edu/appleton/a/potatodi.html It looks to be an old fashioned potato digger, one that looks to be fairly simple to fabricate and adapted to be pulled behind my small frame tractor. It would save a lot of hours (not to mention my back) if successfully implementated. I know there are larger, more automated solutions, but, in my opinion, far too large an investment for a one acre patch. Anyone have more detailed pictures and/or instructions of the chain arrangement. ect ect ? It's a bit hard to decipher from this sketch any decent details. Thanks.

[cahickm2 0]

For as long as I can remember this is how my grandpa harvested his potatoes whith his old allis. However, his only had one large wheel in the front, which would cause it to be a little clumsy. This one would be better with two wheels (stability). I don't have any dimensions on his and most likely can't get any because I don't live close. Your best bet would be to go to an old farm auction or something along those lines and possibly find one there for a cheap price.

[Charlieson 0]

My Father-in-law had a potato plow that fit on the back of his AC 416. I could post a picture. It should be fairly easy to fabricate. We use to dig potatoes with a merry tiller that we took the tines off and replaced with wheels, then it had a potatoe plow on the back. Dad had a 2 wheel tractor that worked well also.

[GWGAllisfan 159]

From what I remember from when I was very young (less than 6 years old I think), we plowed up potatoes with a regular plowstock fitted with a long narrow sweep. The idea was to get under them and roll them out of the ground. The plow in that instance was mule powered though.

[Chris727 2,148]

I think brinly makes a sleeve hitch type potato type plow or "middlebuster" available at Sears.

[DMedal 1]

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-3pt-farm-tractor-one-row-potato-plow-middle-buster_W0QQitemZ250099137295QQihZ015QQcategoryZ66888QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[MrSteele 495]

A middle buster works well for digging 'taters' as we call them down south. The shovel lays the potatoes to either side of the row you are digging and makes finding them less a chore.

[AllisPhreak 0]

So, essentially, a 'single-shoe' plow blade is all that is required to dig the potatoes ? The reference to 'chains' in this article : http://www.history.rochester.edu/appleton/a/potatodi.html confused me. Anyone know what these chains actually did, if they are not necessary ?

[UCD 14]

The chains rode in the bottom of the furrow to break up clumps of dirt and to bring the potatos to the top.

[Corncountytractors 0]

When I was a kid. My dad had a potato plow. That had like a shovel plow. That brought the taters up on a grate. And had a shaker. A floppy wheel to shake off dirt. Have only seen one since. Should be able to find one. Or a picture of one on the net. Wish I had that old tater digger now. BOB

[HubbardRA 19]

When I was young we first used a horse-drawn shovel plow to dig the potatoes. In later years, my grandpa had a Farmall Cub. It had a "U" shaped drawbar. He would flip the drawbar forward and secure it that way, then attach a shovel plow he had made to fit the drawbar. That put the plow in a position where he could see it when plowing out the potatoes. We always made three trips down each row, one down the middle, then one to each side of the first. This was to make sure we got all the potatoes. We still missed a few.

[JoeJ 0]

For what it's worth, here's the sears model. I've been told it was to hook to their own 3 point hitch.
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/JoeJ/SEARS_002.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/JoeJ/SEARS_001.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v475/JoeJ/SEARS_03.jpg[/img]

[AllisPhreak 0]

Joe -- Wow. Nice pics. Exactly the pictures I was looking for. Thank you. And thanks to everyone else for their help. Karl