Do you still sell them?
This is from last mont, this engine has harvested more hay and grains that many saw in a entire lifetime, still going strong without work on the engine in 40 years, sometimes runing for days at a time.
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Hi Kristijan,
I know that it is a lot of (earth-) work, but have you thought of create terraces for your fields?
The pros are you can work in level ground for crops and vegies, less danger of soil washed away.
The slope can be used for fruit trees and bushes.
I have read this in a book of a farmer in Austria. He can use his steep land with this method much better,
with the steep hills before it was only suitable for grazing.
Here is a link:
You can see the terraces: The grains (or vegetables) are growing on the level part and the trees and bushes are growing on the slope.
Of course this would be a project for years, but I know you would be able to do it if you like.
Regards,
Til
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Have you thought about that?
IF THERE IS A SPACE BETWEEN THE CLUTCH AND THE DIFFERENTIAL YOU CAN BUILD THIS TYPE OF ECONOMIC AND SIMPLE REDUCER
http://www.thepixelpump.com/widdershins/how-to-2speed-transmission.php
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Til, terraces are a option for vegetables, but l have enough flat for thet plus im going no till cultivation lately anyways. Its the fealds that are a problem… to prduce enough grains for my farm to be selfsufficiant wuld mean A LOT of terraces, plus corn tends to grow poorly where there is a edge for some reason…
Allso, our soil is only about a foot deep on parts, then its sansdtone bottom.
Tierry, no need! Thanks for a interasting link thugh.
Funnyest thing happned. With the cultivator l bought, the guy allso geve me some random “junk” for free. Allmost sayd no but who can say no to free junk??? Anyway, l set it aside and went looking for parts for my new MB gasifier on the scrap pile. Then, looking at the junk, it hit me. 2 hours of fixing rusty bolts and hinges, l ended up with a cultivator TANK! This thing is ment to have wheels for transportation but the work is done with a 5" wide steel track that runs right under it! Man thats a workhorse now with tons of grip and torq! Has anwone ever seen something like that?
Chris, when you get the time, culd you plese split this topic to Charcoal gasification or Woodgas farming category? The cultivator is geting its right for those categorys soon 
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Corn is a water intensive crop I suspect the edge tends to be too dry for it.
I would be a little careful about trying to grow grain and corn as part of a small scale self sufficient farm. Especially corn. It tends to require a lot of pesticides or physical cultivation in order to deal with weeds and corn borers. Then if it is sweet corn raccoons around here are highly likely to eat it all before it is actually ready to harvest. My uncle claimed back in the 90s the current dairy science showed it was cheaper to raise 100% grass and feed a cheaper purchased grain then to try and ballance out your own corn and gain production when you included the pesticides you needed. We where running about 200 head of cows at the time.
I think for small scale farming you can feed pigs largely out of normal garden vegetables. I like potatoes as a crop even though I do need to use an organic certified pesticide for the potatoe bugs. My grandfather raised pigs 100% on potatoes one year when he had hollow hearts and couldn’t sell the potatoes back in the early 50s. I have not tried to figure out what crops will work for chickens as I haven’t wanted to raise them but ducks and geese are said to largely fend for themselves.
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Ok the link above is no longer vieweble. Here is a picture of my cultivator.
Its a 3 speed gearbox, forward-backward. Engine is l was told 9hp and it seems about rigt. 300-500
cc displacement, real slow turning 4 stroke flathead. In very good condition it seems!
The handlebar rotates 360° so you either have the engine in front or on the back, depending on the work plned for it and acessorys (plow, tiller, trailer, grass cuter, hay raker…). Thas real handy for farming but not for woodgas… but we get to that later.
It has a 3 speed pto.
This machine will operate mostly on a remote land with no electricity and difficuldly reachable steep property, mostly clearing ovrgrown pasture land and fealds. My first thod was a horse and althugh a usefull “tool”, you cant exactly run a chunker off of it…
Now, l was thinking of what kind of acesserys l need it for. Log spliter, wood chipper, wood chunker (rebak), char crusher, winch… are a few. Designing a individual machine to fit on while keeping it ligt enough to be transported with the litle 2 wheel tractor is a chalange. What l think l will do is mount a hydro pump/motor on the pto. Much easyer to hook 2 hoses on a machine then designing pto/puley/gearing ror each machine. Any tods?
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It takes about 1.5 hp per gpm on a hydraulic pump. 9hp will only run about 5 or 6 gpm at 2500 psi. That will make for a pretty slow hydraulic system especially with a wood splitter. You really need 15 hp and 10 gpm to have an effective hydraulic system. My case ingersoll 448 was designed with a 18hp motor and 12 gpm hydraulic pump. I replaced the gas motor with a 10 hp diesel I happened to have from an Ebay special deal I couldn’t pass up years ago. Even with the high torque of the diesel motor that 12 hp pump will stall the motor under heavy load. It will split wood all day long but pulling my rake up a hill the motor will stall before the pump trips the pressure limit of the system.
You could probably run a 2 stage hydraulic pump where the flow drops with pressure but those have a sudden change over where the flow cuts in half or doubles based on raises or lower pressure. I looked at that for my case ingersoll until I realized it would jerk the entire hydraulic driveline when it switched. I didn’t like the idea of sudden slowdown with a steering wheel in front of me. In your case that might not be an issue.
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Dan, we are lucky not to have much problems with corn. Its a hungry and thirsty crop but other than that, we been growing small sample fealds for a few years now completely treatment free, with sucsess. Just hoe twice then forget about it. Even that might be eliminated with the woodgas weed burner l am designing.
Allso its worth mentioning we are choosing old non hybrid voreietys. Not as productive but more resistant.
Corn is nice becouse it allso produces a lot of easy chipable mulc. And we nee lots of it!
Pigs, you are probably right. We pasture our minipigs, feeding them nothing all summer (exept mommas) and they do just fine. Where did your fathers potato pigs get protein? Potatos dont have much…
As for grains, l allso like proso millet. Grown a pach last year. Extremely tough and resistant, and wery productive! But l read they dont have much protein…
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I like all the things that follow people home on this thread, very interesting to see what is made of it all and knowing how much is built into the different gasifier projects we build.
About chickens, they eat all our compost we produce, the weeds we pull out of the gardens. They are better than pigs, we have eggs every day. So many that Dana sales them on a regular basis.
The only thing that follow me home lately was a brake drum that I found half covered with dirt. One look at it, I thought this can be used as a restriction plate for a future gasifier build.
Bob
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Thank you! Thats exactly the info l am looking for.
This double stage pump… l think l have that on my 22t log spliter. It has 2 speeds but only one pump/2 lines, l never understood how that works???
Well lm not looking for speed. Most wood needs no spliting, but you know, occasionaly you encounter a crucked knoty old wild pear tree or similar…
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I honestly don’t know he would just talk about raising them on potatoes and having to boil the potatoes or grind then up so the pigs didn’t choke on them. I never got much more information than that.
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The two lines should be just input and output. Basically there is a high volume low pressure pump and a low volume high pressure pump inside the same housing when the pressure increases there is a pressure valve that opens up flow to the other pump lowing the volume but building more pressure. It is slightly more complex as there has to be minimum flow through both pumps at all times to keep them lubricated but that is the theory. They are a nice compromise you gain flow when there is no load but you get less flow then a single pump would provide at max pressure. If the motor could run 6 gpm at 2500 psi it would probably run something like a 3 gpm full pressure 12 gpm low pressure pump. I don’t know the actual dual pressure pump specs anymore because it was years ago I looked at them.
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One of my elderly relatives had a farm.
They got to old to work it but they kept some general purpose chickens and raise a hog or two for family get together.
There was also an old cow long past he working years that was a pet more than anything else.
Now the thing about the chickens is they DO eat everything.
So does a pig of you have food scraps, but a good general purpose chicken is they eat all the insects and clean up any spilled grain.
They keep the rats and mice away, and insect populations down.
I wish I had a picture of these birds.
They were not good laying hens, small, long legs ( too fast but as kid you love to chase chickens HA HA )
Seems to me they could fly a little…
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I grew up working on a dairy farm in Vermont 1974-1982, about 60 miles south of Montreal. Similar climate to yours. I came to the conclusion that grass mixed with alfalfa or vetch was what really made sense up there.
Rindert
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I wish I had old pear trees growing around me.
Best I might find are small sour wild cherries ( they don’t taste good or burn good HA HA )
Kris:
Do you have black truffles in the woods around your home?
I was reading about truffles and truffle collecting…
There was talk of the Balkans and black market for Truffles from there in the Economist Magazine.
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Well occasionaly they are found in our woods but are “common” south of me, on Istra peninsula. But good luck finding one without a well trained dog, or better, pig.
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I have clover it vetch with Timothy. The vetch is harder to cut if it gets too overgrown. Alaph never steemed to hold here in a couple of years the field would have to be replated but I have Timothy clover mix that was planted in the 80s and still holds true today.
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That sounds like a very healthy pasture. And vetch is great for fixing nitrogen…
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I sure wish Norther Ontario was not so harsh sometimes.
We have blue berries, you get tired of them quick HA HA
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Agreed. However, a haybine will not get tangled up with vetch. I think it’s because the rollers pull stuff through the section before that can happen. What we did.
Rindert
Not trying to sell anything here. Just so everyone knows what I’m talking about.
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