Think Small When Equipment Shopping

Finding the right equipment makes the job easier, is cost-effective and allows efficient and effective use of time and labor. To solve the equipment puzzle, ask yourself, “What do I need, how large do I need it, and is it a good fit for my farm?” Equipment needs can run from the basic – think hand weeders – to the high-tech, such as GPS-equipped tractors, digitally integrated irrigation systems or specialty harvesters. With any equipment, the purchase price, learning curve, and maintenance and repair costs should be justified by the time and labor it saves and the increase in crop quality and/or quantity it provides. Equipment Shopping

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However, for the smaller or more diverse grower, purchasing large specialty equipment to make the job easier isn’t always cost-effective, and probably won’t readily fit into the scale of their operation.

Scaling your purchase

Small growers in particular are challenged when selecting equipment. The scale of the equipment, not to mention the cost, is often not designed for small-scale or diverse specialty crop growers.

On the farm, scale is everything. Improperly sized equipment won’t make your job any easier.

“There isn’t much specialized equipment out there that’s made for a 5- to 15-acre diversified vegetable farm,” said Jason Salvo, owner of Local Roots Farm in Duvall, Washington.

“You have to think really long-term about how big you are today and also how big you might be in five or 10 years,” he said. “When we started acquiring equipment, we had to make some decisions about how wide our beds should be, how wide our walk aisles, how big our tractors needed to be to fit that system, and how big all of our implements needed to be to fit our system.”

A tractor is often the first piece of larger equipment purchased on any farm, no matter the size or growing practices. Since a tractor and its implements can perform a wide variety of tasks, selecting a tractor sized to your needs and outfitting it with implements that work with your crops and growing practices is a smart equipment decision.

“Ground preparation is certainly one of the most important aspects as far as timeliness and effect on the entire growing season,” saidWilhoit. “I would say it is one of the areas where it is probably worth having the right equipment to be able to accomplish what has to be done when it has to be done. Tillage tools can get expensive, but smaller-scale growers can work out combinations of equipment to meet their needs without having to spend too much.”

Even compact tractors can be equipped with hitches and support a variety of implements. A guide to compact tractor selection can be found at .

Another important consideration when selecting implements is whether they can be used with all or most of your tractors. “Everything should work together and be modular, in that each piece of equipment can be used by every tractor,” Salvo said. Choosing a quick-hitch system for the tractor can make life easier, but not all manufacturers adhere to the standards of the American Society of Agricultural & Biological Engineers.

Another consideration is ergonomics. The pedals, seat (preferably adjustable, with armrests and back support), steering wheel, throttle and transmission control should be comfortable and well-placed. If an operator is uncomfortable while operating equipment, it can result in fatigue, stress and loss of productivity.

When purchasing used equipment, think safety. Older tractors should be retrofitted with rollover protective structures (ROPS), and all used equipment should be closely inspected for missing or worn parts prior to use.

Planning for mechanization

“Tractor cultivation is increasingly attractive as farm size increases to the point where hand labor cannot complete weeding in a timely manner,” said Dr. Eric Gallandt, associate professor, University of Maine School of Food and Agriculture. “Tractors have higher work rates. They are able to cultivate more row feet per hour than hand labor. New cultivation equipment is not cheap, but depending on the farm’s weed pressure and labor costs, it may not take more than a couple of seasons to pay for the investment.”

While tractors may seem an obvious choice for a first big equipment purchase, Salvo has some words of wisdom for farmers eager to make that purchase.

“If you have a tractor but no attachments, you aren’t any better off,” he said. “I think the most important pieces of equipment on our farm are our seeder and our tiller, because we use them so much.”

Before purchasing equipment and scaling up, remember that your beds and aisles will have to be sized appropriately.

“Everything flows from your bed system,” Salvo explained. “We have all of our beds set to 60-inch centers; we have 48-inch bed tops and 12-inch walk aisles. We chose that size because there’s a lot of equipment out there that’s in the 60-inch to 72-inch category, such that every pass does one bed. Now that we have chosen that configuration, we are more or less locked in unless we want to invest in a lot of equipment.”

Opting for less equipment

On small farms, sometimes the labor involved with certain tasks is best done without mechanized equipment. Making many cultivation adjustments on a tractor-mounted tool bar can be cumbersome. Gallandt said the size of the crop and the soil conditions would also be accounted for in order to achieve optimal adjustments, and field conditions often favor hand tools.

“Smaller growers are often highly diversified, with many species and planting arrangements throughout the farm. Using hand tools, it is easy to move from one row per bed, like peas or beans, to two rows per bed or five rows per bed, like radish, turnip or carrots,” he explained.

He continued, “Even if growers chose to stick with hand tools, a lot can be done to increase their efficacy and working rates. Working rates are much faster for long-handled tools, especially those that work on both push and pull strokes, like a stirrup hoe and wheel hoes. Straight, consistent-spaced rows make wheel hoeing and work with long-handled tools more efficient.”

A walk-behind tractor, such as the one offered by Earth Tools (http://www.earthtoolsbcs.com), may be a good fit for a small farm. Implements for mowing, vertical tilling, laying plastic and more are available for these types of tractors.

Other popular equipment includes compact plastic mulch layers, many requiring just one operator. Some models also lay down irrigation line simultaneously. However, such purchases can be expensive.

“Here in Kentucky, we have a lot of opportunities for shared-use equipment related to plastic mulch through our county extension offices,” Wilhoit said. Smaller-scale growers should check on possibilities for borrowing such equipment before spending so much on it themselves, not only through extension, but from other growers.”

Gallandt conducts field research on hand tools and scale-appropriate weeding tools for the small farm.

He has been researching the Finnish Weed Master, a wheeled tool that Gallandt said is much faster than any long-handled weeding tools. Links to videos of his field trials, as well as more information on the research, can be found at http://gallandt.wordpress.com.

“The Weed Master is a very clever design, adapting tool bar technology to a hand tool, but despite its promise and many on-farm demonstrations and farmer tests, I’m not aware of any growers who have purchased one,” Gallandt said.

Other examples of equipment designed to meet the needs of small operations include push seeders and paper pot transplanters.

Designing small farm equipment

Farmers are innovators, and many small farmers have designed tools to fit their needs. Sometimes this involves retrofitting existing equipment, and sometimes it’s built from scratch.

Salvo said, “I wanted a tiller/bed shaper combo. They make them for much bigger tractors, but not for the smaller equipment we use. I had a welder build a sled that goes on the back of our tiller, so we now make raised beds when we till, all in one pass.”

Innovative equipment design for small farmers is what Farm Hack, “a community for farm innovation,” is all about. Recently, the National Center for Appropriate Technology joined Farm Hack (http://www.farmhack.net) to host an event at the University of California, Davis. Projects included grain elevators for small-scale growers, and an equipment showcase highlighted homemade farm equipment and repurposed tools.

“Most specialized equipment is designed for larger-scale farms, so there’s a lot of room for innovation among us small-scale farmers to design and build equipment that can make our operations more efficient, yet also works with our small equipment,” Salvo explained.

When it comes to equipment for small farms, bigger isn’t always better, and new equipment might not fit your farm. Selecting the right equipment for your needs may even mean getting creative and engineering your own design. Whatever you decide, plan your equipment to best match the cultivating, planting and harvesting needs of your farm.


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