harvester

A harvester is a person or machine that gathers ripe crops from fields. In agriculture, harvesters are used to collect grains, fruits, vegetables, and other crops. Manual harvesting relies on workers using knives, shears, baskets, or crates, while mechanical harvesters automate the process and reduce labor.

Mechanical harvesters include reapers and combine harvesters, as well as specialized machines for olives, grapes, sugar beets, potatoes, and berries. The most common machine for grains is the combine harvester, which cuts the crop, threshes the grain to separate kernels from the straw, and cleans the grain in a single pass. Other machines may perform only cutting (mowers), detasseling, picking (for fruits), or lifting and stripping.

History and development trace the move from hand tools and draught animals to mechanization. The transition began with improvements to scythes and sickles and culminated in the McCormick reaper of 1831, which popularized mechanical harvesting in large fields. The invention of the combine harvester in the early 20th century further increased efficiency by integrating cutting, threshing, and winnowing. Modern combines often feature powerful engines, adjustable headers, advanced threshing and cleaning systems, and optionally GPS guidance and yield mapping.

Other uses of the term exist in information technology, where a harvester can refer to software that collects data from multiple sources, a practice known as data harvesting or web harvesting.