Garbage Can Thresher Forr Wildflower Seeds

Garbage Can Thresher Forr Wildflower Seeds CROPS Miscellaneous 33-4-2 Collecting wildflower seeds by hand is labor intensive. Threshing them out by hand is even more work. That's why Billy Robb adapted a weed whip, trashcan and other parts to automate the job. His mini-threshing machine shreds leaves, stalks and seed heads in minutes, leaving behind a pile of seed and chaff that can be easily separated. "The plastic trimmer line doesn't damage the seed," says Robb. "It just breaks it apart. This setup also works well as a leaf shredder." Robb works at a prairie preserve, and part of his job is to harvest seed for prairie restoration. While the preserve has a small specialty combine for use with grass seed, wildflower seed has to be collected and processed by hand. "We don't have enough to justify sending it out to a professional seed cleaner," he says. "However, we do have about 70 to 80 species that we collect, such as blazing star, annual sunflowers and wild indigo." To make his mini thresher, Robb made legs for a trashcan from discarded lawn mower handles. Sections cut from the bottom of the trashcan were replaced with hardware cloth, sized to allow seeds and finer shredded pieces through. After removing the shaft and drive cable from the gas-powered trimmer, he shortened both. He also bent the shaft 90¦, allowing it to be directed up and into the trashcan. He mounted the line-head face up in the center of the bottom of the trashcan, and he mounted the motor to a board fixed to the support legs. "I mounted the loop handle grip back onto the shaft to help prop the trimmer head inside the can," he says. "The string spins from 1/2 to 1 in. above the bottom of the can." Robb controls the clutch with one hand while dumping seed heads into the top of the trashcan. The throttle is set low enough so material doesn't bounce back out of the can. The chopped-up seed heads, seeds and other chaff fall onto a tarp for storage and later broadcast seeding. Although he used a metal trashcan for his thresher, he advises using plastic, as the trimmer line tends to break when pushed into the metal edges. The mini thresher works well on most seeds but for the smallest seeds, like echinacea, penstemon and rose hips, he built a smaller version using a 5-gal. bucket and a blender motor. For detailed step-by-step instructions, see Robb's posting at the do-it-yourself website www.instructables.com. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Billy Robb, 215 N. Lincoln, Hillsboro, Kansas 67063 (btrobb@gmail.com).

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