[Gasification] [Digestion] Cattails

[Richard Haard]

On Dec 21, 2007, at 12:51 PM, Benjamin Domingo Bof wrote:

> Richard, for me this proposal is Fórmula 1 due to low cost and  
> facility of production.
>  Two questions:
>  1- In salicaceae meet in last october we see an feller-buncher very  
> expensive made by Komatsu using scissors made in Denmark.
>   "Montonero" chief (was present three "bolivarians" students from  
> Los Andes Venezuela) tell us
>  "is not important machine cost , This must work yielding great  
> quantity of crop an hour.
>  Using tractors in lifter-shaker we doubt about operation cost  
> relationship.

Hello Benjamin


I agree the lifter-shaker is a machine specialized to high value  
plants . We may take 30 to 45 minutes to harvest a 500 foot seed bed  
but we will obtain 20 to 30,000 bare root seedlings that we sell for   
$0.25 to $1.25 each.

It is the concept I was exposing and perhaps a potato harvester or  
other root crop might be a better technology to look at. We use a  
Danish made machine, Edall (not positive about that spelling at the  
moment) and it costs about $15000. Our first machine we bought used  
for $200 a real bargain. We are planning to buy another and with  
currency differences will be even more expensive.

I have seen images of the feller-buncher and it does what I would like  
to see done. Your advisors are most likely right if you are at economy  
of scale for that machine and the heavy tractors needed to move. This  
means your startup operation will need to be at a scale that may be  
beyond your initial market and your ability to transport during your  
startup period while you perfect your growing methods.

Depending on where you are in your production planning you may be  
better off to improvise on the harvest technology and build your own  
semi automated harvest equipment. We think a swather type instrument  
would work and bundles could be gathered up and manually bound for  
transshipment. Think about using a chain saw for cutting a row of  
willow side mounted on a tractor or maybe ATV with a device to push  
the limbs over in a uniform fashion, making them easy to gather up and  
bind with baler twine.

For our small farm scale operation this is the harvest system I have  
imagined. We are moving from a willow coppice test project to a 5 acre  
scale this spring and will be operating this field in 2 seasons. It  
has taken us 4 years to get to this point and we are still negotiating  
a lease to use the nearby tract.

Gasifying straw bales is a question for other list members because I  
have been a long lurker here for just this curiosity. But we are  
thinking along the same lines. Making the system fit under air quality  
rules would be an issue but batch loading such a gasifier with say  
bales of willow stems and to make charcoal, running a engine for  
intermittent power needs like water pumping on the gas is my concept  
study.

So far as use and digestion of easily digestible starch from a plant  
like cattail here is an image of 5 month old plants we grew with  
starch loaded roots. Note that this starch is only present at certain  
times of year and the plants cannot be stored for a year around  
operation. Getting them out of the gumbo soils where they naturally   
grow during summer drougth will be a large problem but I have seen  
these lifter shakers work in very heavy, wet soils. If the yields in  
digestible starch are very high it may be worth trying with a borrowed  
machine from a forest nursery.

Below link to image of bareroot cattail

<http://farm1.static.flickr.com/249/526680430_ed7a05e04d_o.jpg>

>



>  2-- Using straw bales could be possible to gasificate it?.
>  Roots to starch digestion and straws to fire.
>   One option is vertical using gravity law and the other horizontal  
> making an mild steel box fired by side,collecting gasses in the  
> other. I remember thirty years ago when we bought one Gardner boat  
> motor , mechanical man tell us about gasifiers using alfalfa to fuel  
> one Willys rural in fiftyes.
>  Regards; Benjamin
>
>  I am familiar with this plant we call it bulrush and our species is
> Scirpus acutus. It grows quite nicely at our farm and it turns out
> water requirements is because of competitive factors and not a
> physiological requirement of the plant, in both typha and scirpus.
>
> The typha though is especially interesting because of the starch rich
> roots that are found in some seasons on this plant. Other starchy root
> aquatic habitat plants have potential such as Wapato, Arrow root or
> duck potato which offers a large starchy root that has been harvested
> as a source of food starch. This plant though requires aquatic habitat
> to grow.
>
> http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=SALA2
>
> Rich
> On Dec 21, 2007, at 4:53 AM, Benjamin Domingo Bof wrote:
>
>> Richard ; very good video . For me this is the way cheapest vegetals
>> to use as energy. Scirpus Californicus named "totora" in our regions
>> could be other source of cellulosic material. Here more info:
>> http://www.peruecologico.com.pe/flo_totora_2.htm
>>
>> Richard Haard escribió:
>> Hmmm
>>
>> The link did not seem to come through
>>
>> try again
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybhz-TBrjZs
>>
>>
>> On Dec 20, 2007, at 9:44 PM, Richard Haard wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Harmon
>>>
>>> Here is a Youtube link to view our use of the lifter-shaker for bare
>>> root harvest an alternate tool to harvest cat-tails , a plant we now
>>> cultivate and harvest at our native plant nursery.
>>>
>>> Rich
>>> On Dec 20, 2007, at 6:50 PM, Harmon Seaver wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Even if there were, it would be
>>>>> difficult to adapt them to modern, mechanised, farming techniques.
>>>>
>>>> Actually it is quite simple. You grow them in paddys, as you do
>>>> rice.
>>>> The water level is managed, and when harvesting, you drain the
>>>> paddy,
>>>> run first one tractor (with tracks or the huge mud tires) with a
>>>> mower
>>>> or harvester that cuts off the stalks 3' above the ground, then a
>>>> second
>>>> tractor following that cuts the stalks at ground level.
>>>> Dr. Pratt's group also experimented with harvesting the roots with
>>>> modified potato diggers which seemed to work well.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>