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Crop lifters aiding the harvesting of a New Zealand Cape oat crop near Maitland on Yorke Peninsula, late 1940–early 1950s.

The scene depicts the harvesting of an oat crop with a tractor-drawn header. The harvesting machine is a header (which cut the oat heads off) which replaced the harvester (where heads were beaten off and the grain cleaned in a winnower) all in the one machine, which in turn replaced the first harvesting machine, a stripper, used in conjunction with a winnower (two machines and two operations).

The header had an open front with a comb of teeth which combed the top of the crop, the heads were cut off by a reciprocating blade and collected by a revolving worm which conveyed the heads/straw to an elevator and then through a thresher and winnower to separate the grain from the chaff and straw.

Crop lifters were really a ‘false’ comb (a large long finger type) which were attached to the normal comb and designed to stand up a lodged crop as the machine moved through and hence facilitated the harvesting process. Hence, crop lifters not only stood up a lodged/tangled crop making harvesting easier, but enabled a higher percentage of heads to be retrieved and harvested.

New Zealand Cape was a widely grown oat variety at that time, tall growing especially under good conditions, but notoriously weak strawed so that a lodged tangled crop as depicted was not uncommon.

(Source: Information from Rex Krause, 18 June 2007)