Hand-Held Stripper Harvests Prairie Grasses

Hand-Held Stripper Harvests Prairie Grasses COMBINES Miscellaneous 22-5-20 If you're looking for a new sideline business venture - or if you just want to seed a portion of your farm to Prairie grasses and flowers - you might be interested in this hand-held seed harvester. Designed and manufactured by Prairie Habitats Inc., it mounts on a hand-held Stihl string trimmer powered by a 28 c.c. 2-cycle gas engine. The head has been removed and replaced by an 18-in. long nylon stripper brush that acts like thousands of "fingers" to strip small fluffy seeds from the wildgrass. It works like a mini stripper header for combines. The seed is collected in a 2-ft. by 18-in. hopper, which consists of a steel rod frame covered in nylon. To use, you simply walk along slowly. It collects up to 85 percent of seeds in one pass. "You're obviously not going to harvest acres and acres a day with our hand-held machine, but it's a much more efficient way of collecting seed than trying to do it by hand," says John Morgan of Prairie Habitats. "And you can use it in sensitive areas where a combine can't go." Comes with three interchangeable heads to permit harvesting a wide variety of crops and to allow easy customization for special seeds. Sells for $749 (U.S.) delivered. A new front-end loader unit for use on a 50 hp tractor has an 8-ft. stripping brush. It sells for $6,999 plus S&H. A pull-type unit equipped with 4-ft. wide brush and suitable for use behind a small tractor or ATV is also available for $5,999 plus S&H. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Prairie Habitats Inc., Box 1, Argyle, Manitoba, Canada R0C 0B0 (ph 204 467-9371; fax 5004; E-mail jpmorgan@mb.sympatico.ca; website www.prairiehabitats.com).

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