New electricaly powered vegetable production system

[Scrub Puller]

Yair... Hello from Australia.This maybe a bit out of left field for this forum (seeing as it's mostly big gear featured here). I have always reckoned though that the small farmer should be able to make a living on just a few acres of specialised crop.

With conventional methods it's pretty difficult. For the past few years we have been working on an a partly automated farming system working on the principle of a small centre pivot irrigator.

Four prototypes later we have a proof of concept machine that works from mains or solar power (2.2kw) and we believe it will produce intensively grown crops with less inputs of energy and labour than any other means.

Having worked on the concept for eight years pretty much in isolation we would be interested in critiscism and comment from practical people and maybe get a bit of discussion going as to the viability of the idea.

I can post some pictures if you are interested.

 

[bd797]

Lets see what you came up with. It sounds interesting.

 

[roddyo]

+1

I would love to see it:notworthy

 

[Vantage_TeS]

What are you waiting for, let us see and hear about your idea!

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair...thanks for responses folks. Having a couple of "issues" with computer. Should have some pictures on here after work tomorrow tonight.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair...back again. I'll see how I go with these pictures, newbie at this posting picture carry on.

Picture shows unit positioned on a fallow circle all ready to go. I'll post this one as practice to see if I can do it. More pictures and details to follow.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair... a pictures up there, it worked! Still having internet problems though, lost signal again with this wireless connection.

As you can see the machine is pretty simple. This one produces crops in a series of half acre circles. It moves effortlessly from circle to circle under its own power and depending on the crop we reckon one machine could run up to ten circles.

The objective of the concept is to provide a degree of automation and precision to the small to medium scale grower. Generaly accuracy and repeatability will be similar to that provided by GPS and camera guidance systems.

This will allow relitively unskilled workers to work tooling within about twenty millimeters of small established plants.

I've got pictures out of order. Second shot shows the tool carrying slide that traverses back and forth along the main frame. It is shown here with a set of disks configured into a leveling tool prior to foming up planting ridges.

I'll post this now in case I lose the connection

 

[Scrub Puller]

Since starting on the project I have discovered there are several groups and individuals around the world working on centre pivot cultivation systems.
I have made contact where possible and one bloke from Finland even sent some photos of a small unit working in Slovakia. They don’t seem to want to talk though and I find this disappointing.
As far as I can determine all the systems are low rise with about a meter clearance below the frame. Our fist prototype (which I worked commercially for a couple of years) was similar and I found the low rise configuration completely unsatisfactory.
Apart from the obvious inability to grow corn and staked crops such as tomatoes and snow peas, workers picking or weeding as the machine was in operation had to hunker down or get off the circle every time it went around. The decision was made to rebuild the unit into the more practical six foot clearance unit you see here.
Centre pivot systems similar to this could well be the first of the semi-automated and robotic systems that will evolve to provide business opportunities for folks who are not traditional farmers but can see the potential (and perhaps the necessity) to grow niche, naturally grown commercial crops on their little piece of land.
Like it or not (in my opinion) things are going to change. The rising cost of fuel and freight will force a gradual shift back to local food production on smaller farms near major urban centres.

The problem is that the small to medium scale farm has pretty much been by passed by mechanisation. This is the Twenty First Century and as far as I can see the last innovation with direct application to the sector was the three point hitch on tractors in about Nineteen Twenty Six.
Sure, that made it easy enough to plough and disk and rototill...and maybe even form up beds...but then what?
In most cases the tractor is parked up and (on small operations) the tasks of seeding, setting transplants, thinning, weeding and harvesting are pretty much done by hand...as it has been done for hundreds of years.
The real labour saving devises, the precision seeders, the planters, precision weeding systems and most importantly, partially automated harvesting systems are tools for the large producer with no “scaled down” equivalents for smaller farms.
The advent of gantry systems with what in effect is a “sky hook” to which implements can be attached is a completely different take on crop production techniques.
I’ll post these next pictures before I lose the connection and in the next lot will show the drive unit and how the unit works.

 

[grandpa]

Excellent concept and hats off to you for thinking outside the box.

 

[OCR]

New electricaly powered vegetable production system:

Excellent concept and hats off to you for thinking outside the box.

Couldn't agree more... :thumbsup


OCR

 

[bill onthehill]

Nice assortment of attachments you are running there. I can't help thinking of "crop circles" from space however! That idea would work well in sandy soils similar to irrigation systems now in use.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yeah...Billonthehill. I don’t know about from space but a while back I had a helicopter come down and do a couple of circuits.
We only have room for a couple of circles but there is not farming much in these parts and from up above the freshly worked circles must have stuck out like dogs balls.
You could come up with some interesting patterns. The most efficient layout for an installation would be a central “master circle” surrounded by six satellite circles...it’s not critical though, the circles can be set up anyplace they fit and can utilise awkward bits of ground and corners.
Attachments are not a problem and custom tooling to do specific jobs is very easily made. My instinct is that the system lends itself very well to the organic low-till and no-till methods being developed by the Rodale Institute and others.

 

[mustbecrazy]

a great idea! Especially important that you have put you ideas into action. I could see where your invention could make a huge impact for small farmers. (I am not a farmer) Although I have land that could be a farm. It always comes down to money and time for me. equipment is expensive (make that very expensive) and I can not see how a small farmer could even make enough to make payments on equipment even if he could get the money. Also labor is expensive here in Oregon, USA. ($8.40/hr us). With the GPS and CNC technologies we have today your system might just be the answer. Good Luck!!!

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair...that's interesting mustbecrazy, $8.40 an hour is expensive? I take that is for "unskilled" farm labour? What does a good 'dozer hand or dumptruck driver pull in your parts?

As a comparison...(with Aussie dollar today at 85 cents U.S) field workers here get about fourteen bucks and a trucker/dozer/backhoe/trackhoe hand gets twenty two maybe twenty five an hour....more in the mines of course.

What's a three litre diesel flat deck 4x4 pickup cost State's side? Just trying to get a handle on income rates and costs.

Thanks for anyone who replys.

 

[nickbowers]

Looks good. Its great to see some new stuff coming from Australia.
You should get onto land line, they would love a story like that.

One question though, how to you go about picking the crop? guessing you have to work your way in? in a conventional way you can drive a tractor up there.

@ mustbecrazy people in Australia would not get out of bed for that sort of money in Australia, let alone do labor for it. You can get that for working at KFC over here.
Nick

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair...Hello Nickbowers. Picking can be one of the real advantages of the system. The whole concept is still a work in progress but we envisage the development of a whole range of specialised picking aids and attachments...it all takes time and money though. In the meantime we are testing and getting hours up on the structure.

In the most basic system we could fit a set of forks in place of an implement and cut and pack lettuce, cabbage and such like direct into boxes on a pallet. They can be trundled straight out and unloaded into a ute or trailer with no double handling.

We think the concept may be an ideal platform for camera recognition and robotic crop production technology. That is to say the mechanical centre pivot connection provides precise spatial positioning...far easier than developing little GPS guided jiggers that have to find their way up and down conventional rows.

That sort of stuff is way above our pay grades though and we will have to get others involved to go down that route.

 

[stumpjumper83]

to me what the system needs is a category 1 three point hitch right beside the seat that way anything three point hooks right up. but maybe i'm in left field...

that and if either end would attach to a location hub you could work a figure 8 pattern

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair...stumpjumper I agree with the cat. one hitch...we reckon we might just graft it onto the existing arrangement and retain the high lift capability...the need to run a day job (to pay the bills) sure eats into time available to tinker with the jigger. Dunno about the figure eight pattern though...hafta think about that one...hmmm.

By the way. we realy appreciate the comments and suggestions. After working on a project pretty much in isolation it is good to get some positive feedback.

Thanks.