DIY potato planter and potato digger for walk-behind tractor

Recommendation points

• Self-made potato planters
• DIY potato planter drawings
• How to make a potato planter with your own hands according to factory drawings
• Self-made potato diggers
• Vibrating screen type potato digger
• Conveyor type potato digger
• Pointed Potato Digger

If you occupy large areas on your site for potatoes, then the help of various devices will probably not be superfluous. You can make a potato planter and potato digger with your own hands, and we have prepared drawings and recommendations for their assembly for you.

Planting and harvesting potatoes is hard work, especially if you have to cultivate a large area. If you already have a walk-behind tractor, then you can buy or make on your own devices that mechanize these operations, which significantly speeds up the process, increases productivity and even the quality of planting tubers and harvesting.

Self-made potato planters

An integrated potato planter must solve several problems at once:

• the formation of an even furrow of the required depth;
• uniform supply of tubers;
• filling furrows with soil.

Therefore, the unit consists of several units: furrow cutter, tuber, burying discs.

DIY potato planter drawings

The tuber is one of the most difficult units of the unit and not all home craftsmen manage to repeat the factory mechanisms on their own. Some farmers even advise, instead of installing a mechanized tubing, to plant an assistant on the frame next to the container with planting material, who will manually throw the tubers into the furrow, which is cut and buried by the mechanism of the mounted simplified potato planter.

And yet there are designs that you can make yourself. Below are the drawings that you can use to assemble the potato planter yourself.

Single row potato planter

Another design is an automatic potato planter. It is a frame assembled from channels No. 8 with a plywood or metal hopper with a capacity for 2 buckets of potatoes, which is equipped with a feed lift. The lift is assembled from special cups that move with the chain. The movement is given to it from the drive wheel. Masters recommend taking a bicycle chain for transmission, an asterisk on a planter with O 80 mm, and on a walk-behind tractor – O 160 mm. A tubular pipe is attached under the elevator.

Factory potato planter (assembly drawing): 1 – counterweight; 2 – unit; 3 – bracket; 4 – tensioner; 5 – conveyor; 6 – bunker; 7, 9, 16, 23, 24 – bolt; 8 – rack; 10 – sector; 11 – disk; 12 – ridge height; 13 – landing step; 14 – furrower; 15 – landing depth; 17 – coupling; 18 – track width; 19 – bracket; 20 – drive drum shaft; 21 – conveyor; 22 – angle of attack

Attaching the cups to the chain

The design is factory-made, but this principle is often repeated by home craftsmen (see video).

Manual potato planter

How to make a potato planter with your own hands according to factory drawings

Drawings of a factory planter designed for a heavy walk-behind tractor with ballast in the front or a mini tractor. All elements are attached to the frame.

Double row potato planter: 1 – bearing frame; 2 – bunker for potatoes; 3 – planter; 4 – seat; 5 – seatpost; 6 – support; 7 – flooring for the trunk; 8 – holder for a pair of rippers; 9 – ripper; 10 and 11 – stand with a sealing disc; 12 – foot support; 13 – planter attachments; 14 – support guide wheel

Here, the ripper is a cultivator share assembled with a tine. The seatpost is made from a 42×3 mm tube, the seatpost supports are made from a corner of 50x50x5 mm, the footrests are made from 6 mm sheet. These parts are made separately and welded at a level that is convenient for a particular person..

Potato planter frame

Table 1. Consumption of materials for the frame

Pos.	Element	Material	amount
1	arch	channel No. 8	1 PC.
2	spar	channel No. 8	2 pcs.
3	brace	strip 80×14 mm	2 pcs.
4	hopper mounting bracket	strip 70×8 mm	1 PC.
five	tuber support	sheet 8 mm	2 pcs.
6, 8, 9	crossbars	channel No. 8	3 pcs.
7	cover plate support	sheet 8 mm	2 pcs.
ten	jumper	sheet 6 mm	2 pcs.
eleven	fastening pin to the lower link of the tractor hitch	rod O 18 mm	2 pcs.
12	kerchief	sheet 4 mm	30 pcs.
13	fork for attachment to the central link of the tractor hitch	sheet 6 mm	1 PC.
14, 15	overlays	sheet 6 mm	2 pcs.

Potato bin – sheet steel or plywood

Covering discs are mounted on a support, while the angle of attack and the degree of penetration are regulated by ladders (see drawing) and bushings (4 pcs. Per one axis).

Covering discs: 1 – disk; 2 – rivet (O 6 mm – 5 pcs.); 3 – hub; 4 – bearing housing; 5 and 6 – bearings 180503

The depth of the furrow cutter is adjustable on the frame and rigidly fixed with stepladders. Tuber feeding into the planter – by lift type (see above) or manual.

Planter with furrow cutter: 1 – tubing (3 mm pipe O 100 mm, thicker-walled); 2 – furrow cutter (sheet 6 mm)

Bushing for adjusting the position of the sealing disc

Sealing disc stand: 1 – stand base (pipe O 42×3 mm); 2 and 4 – ladders M12; 3 – rack support; 5 – kerchief (sheet 20×20 mm); 6 – console (rod O 28 mm)

For mulching planting, rippers are used, which are cultivator nozzles attached to a holder – a rack, mounted on the bottom of the frame. The depth of their impact on the soil is regulated by the vertical movement of the racks and fixed with through fingers.

Ripper holder: 1 – clip (sheet 6 mm – 2 pcs.); 2 – kerchief (sheet 6 mm – 4 pcs.); 3 – rod (corner 50x50x5 mm – square welding)

The wheel axle is also bolted to the frame. This is an assembly unit and it is quite difficult to make it – here both machining and welding, and precision is needed, so it is better to order the manufacture of a part according to a drawing in a workshop or use, if possible, used rubber wheels or others that do little damage to the soil.

Wheel axle

Table 2. Consumption of materials for the wheel axle

Pos.	Element	Material	amount
1	support wheel	sheet 4 mm	2 pcs.
3	axis	pipe O 60×8 mm, length 1067 mm	1 PC.
4	clamp	sheet 8 mm	2 pcs.
five	bolt	М16	4 things.
6	screw	М5х0.5	6 pcs.
7	hub cover		2 pcs.
8	nut	М16	2 pcs.
nine	split washer		2 pcs.
ten	support washer		2 pcs.
eleven	bearing	205	4 things.
12	hub		2 pcs.
13	spacer sleeve	pipe O 30×2.5 mm, length 55 mm	2 pcs.
fourteen	gasket	felt	2 pcs.
15	pin		6 pcs.
sixteen	spike		2 pcs.

All elements are assembled on the frame according to the assembly drawing.

Self-made potato diggers

There are three main designs of potato diggers:

1. Vibrating or screening type. These are high-performance attachments consisting of a vibration shaft, a share and a vibration drive. Principle of operation: potatoes are captured together with the soil, moved to a vibrating table, where the earth wakes up and the tubers are poured along the row.
2. Conveyor type. Complex units, consisting of a shovel-like share, a cleaner drum and a chain-bar conveyor.
3. Arrow type. The simplest design, which is a “fan” attached to the walk-behind tractor with a single hitch, through which the earth wakes up, and the potatoes are thrown to the sides.

For the elements of the potato digger, you need to take a sufficiently thick metal, given the resistance of the soil. The “heavier” the soil, the thicker should be the metal in contact with it.

Vibrating screen type potato digger

Vibrating screen type potato digger

Conveyor type potato digger

1 – propeller shaft of the PCM drive; 2 – frame; 3 – reduction block; 4 – angular gearbox; 5 – cardan shaft of the drum cleaner drive; 6 – support and transport unit; 7 – drum cleaner; 8 – chain-bar conveyor with a share

1,2 – hinge and traction rods; 3 – frame of the geared motor unit; 4 – fuel tank; 5 – motor; 6 – conveyor drive chain; 7 – potato bunker; 8 – wheeled carriage; 9 – regulating bars; 10 – conveyor attachment unit; 11 – chain-bar conveyor; 12 – elevator sides; 13 – share

The original design of the attachment was developed by the master Solovyov. In the picture – trailer base + swivel unit.

Trailer drawing. Bottom view

Table 3. Materials for manufacturing

Pos.	Element	Material	amount
1	welded frame	corner 40×40 mm
2	thrust bearing	strip 150×40 mm, 10 mm, St. 3	2 pcs.
3	bracket	strip 100×40 mm, 10 mm, St. five	2 pcs.
4	half shaft	steel 45	2 pcs.
five	wheel	5.00-10 assembled (from decommissioned agricultural machinery)	2 pcs.
6	drawbar	seamless pipe, cold-rolled, Ø 45х4 mm, L = 1.2 m	3 pcs.
7	cardan head	from decommissioned agricultural machinery
8	pin-coupling	from decommissioned agricultural machinery
nine	polyk fatty	pieces of steel angle	5 pieces.
ten	drawbar pivot	hot-rolled steel round O 36 mm or a piece of steel pipe O 36×6 mm
eleven	nut	M36	2 pcs.
12	washer
13	welded cross member	piece of steel angle 40×40 mm
fourteen	strut axle	hot-rolled steel round Ø 40 mm
15	kerchief	10 mm, Art. Z	2 pcs.
sixteen	nut	M20	4 things.
17	Grover washer		4 things.
18	bolt	M20	4 things.

Pointed Potato Digger

This is the simplest design, and, nevertheless, quite productive. In self-production of the device, a drawing of the product and a useful video on the topic will help, in which the wizard shows all the stages of assembly.

Arrowhead digger: 1 – bipod; 2 – field bar; 3 – cultivator paw; 4 – teeth

The bipod can be taken from a serial cultivator, the bar can be made from a steel corner 50×50 mm. The tip is the trimmed tine of the cultivator, and the shaker teeth can be made from old forks by cutting at 45 ° and welded to the tip with the trimmed part.