Lotus root is an important aquatic vegetable and special agricultural product that is easy to grow and difficult to harvest, with good nutritional value and economic benefits. The lotus root is commonly planted in the Yellow River Delta region at a depth of 30~40cm, but it is mainly harvested manually, which is a harsh environment, labor-intensive, and requires long hours in cold water, which is extremely harmful to the lotus root farmers' health. To solve the low efficiency and high labor intensity of lotus root manual harvesting, an intelligent, effective, and low-damage crawler selfpropelled hydraulic lotus root harvester was designed, which can improve the mechanization and efficiency of lotus root harvesting, and promote the large-scale development of lotus root industry. The harvester was mainly composed of power system, water circuit, hydraulic system, and control system. The total power of the machine was provided by the diesel engine, the moving mechanism was crawler type, which had good stability and flexible steering performance and can adapt to the complex root field operating environment. The mode of flushing slit was swinging jet, which was driven by the lifting hydraulic cylinder and oscillating hydraulic cylinder to ascend and descend the nozzle array and oscillate in a left-right cycle respectively, and was capable of 0°~40°slope transit operation, with an operating width of 2.3m. It can quickly and effectively wash the silt above the surface of the lotus root. Harvesting experiments were conducted in three different lotus root fields. The results showed that the lotus root harvesting depth was 40~50cm, the harvesting ratio was no less than 95%, and the lotus root damage ratio was no more than 5%, and the fuel consumption was no more than 215g/(kW·h). In ordinary fields, speed of the harvester was 3m/min and the average working efficiency was 0.04hm2/h, which was 4~5 times of manual harvesting. In the experimental process, the lotus root harvester had stable working performance, which met the requirements of lotus root harvesting.