"Man-Powered" Wild Seed Harvester

"Man-Powered" Wild Seed Harvester CROPS Miscellaneous 27-4-6 Mervin Wallace harvests several acres of wildflower seed every year at his Missouri Wildflowers Nursery, Jefferson City, Missouri. He uses a home-built walk-behind harvester that cuts off and collects seed heads. It's been called a combine, but Wallace says it doesn't thresh and separate the seed. That has to be done later. The harvester is built as lightweight as possible. It's equipped with a gasoline-powered 42-in. hedge trimmer that acts as a cutterbar. The frame is made out 3/4-in. steel conduit and measures 42 in. wide by 5 1/2 ft. long and 15 in. deep. He bought lightweight garden cart wheels and hubs fitted with bicycle tires. The wheels are mounted so they can be adjusted easily to match the height of the crop being harvested. The reel is made from 1/4-in. steel rod, and the bats were formed by covering the frame with duct tape. A bicycle chain running off of a 3-speed bicycle sprocket welded to one of the wheels powers the reel. "That lets us change the speed of the reel if we need to," he says. Wallace figures there's about $1,000 worth of parts and labor in his harvester. While he uses it exclusively for wildflowers, he says it would be ideal for cutting small plots of grass seed or small grain. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Mervin Wallace, Missouri Wildflower Nursery, 9814 Pleasant Hill Road, Jefferson City, Mo. 65109 (ph 573 496-3492; email: mowldflrs@sockets.net).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.