Sugar beet haulm is a valuable animal fodder or a raw material for biogas generation. The most important indicator of the work of the cleaners is their energy-power characteristics since they affect the amount of the operating costs and the economic performance, on the whole. The purpose of the experimental investigations was to determine the nature of the change in the torque moment and power on the drive of the vertical cleaner, tractive power, as well as the draft resistance of the root crop head cleaner. Experimental investigations were carried out under the field conditions. In order to study the draft resistance of the working tool, the tensometry method was used. Dependences of the change in the tractive power and the torque moment upon the speed of the movement of the experimental root head cleaner from the haulm residues have been determined. The rational modes of operation of the cleaner are: the forward speed of its movement, equal to 1.5 m·s^-1, the angular speed of rotation of the cleaning tool must be within 60.0...63.0 rad·s^-1. The completeness of cleaning the root crop heads from the haulm residues by the experimental cleaner is 95.9 %, the degree of throwing of the haulm and the plant residues beyond the row is 99.96 %.