Weather forecast: RAIN.
2 Hours later these Windrowed Onions where safely stored.
See how!
Panamanian farmer contemplating wind rowed onions in a Dutch polder in the early evening.
Costa Rican onion farmer taking pictures of an onion lifter
lifting onions in a Dutch polder during the early evening.
The picture above shows a Panamanian Farmer (on a fact finding mission together with farmers from Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Mexico during the onion harvest in the Netherlands) contemplating a Wind-Rowed onion field in a polder somewhere in the center of the Netherlands at 7 pm in the early evening.
The owner of the field had just heart the weather forecast for the next day: RAIN!
So he decided to get his onions into safety. With two tractors, a lifter and a cart to transport the onions from the field to his storage facility he brought is nearly three hectare of windrowed onions into safety in about 3 hours.
The man in the red shirt is a producer from Puerto Rico. He wanted to walk along behind the lifter to see the lifting process from close-up. But the speed of the equipment was such that he couldn't keep up so he took a picture and let the equipment disappear towards the horizon.
Please take note that the age of the lifter is about 12 years according the owner.
The way of lifting onions or potatoes from the field is used all over Europe, from hilly Spain through mountain's Switzerland to the hills of Germany. These machines don't need totally flat polder fields as depicted in these pictures here.
Please watch with attention the movie of a LIFTER in action. And you will notice how delicately this machine handles the onions or potatoes.
The Swan's Neck follows the altitude of the mounted product in the cart with precision, constantly avoiding that the product falls more than about 40 cm.
The black inlet roller is made of a product as comfortable as the cushion in your bed.
The capacity of a lifter is about 1.5 hectare per hour and is completely in depended of the yield.
