Ever wonder what happens to those hay bales that are a standard part of the Island landscape during the summer and fall?
Well, they usually end up as livestock bedding or feed and broken down with a device known as a bale chopper or shredder. They are usually mounted on a trailer or cart hauled behind a tractor to handle smaller bales or mounted on the tractor for larger bales.
Now, a Prince Edward Island company is exploring a new approach. With funding help from the Prince Edward Island ADAPT Council (which administers the Canadian Adaptation and Rural Development Fund in the province for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada), Double R Manufacturing of Crapaud has developed a working prototype bale shredder known as the “bed master” that could offer producers more flexibility and versatility.
Company president Paul Fox said the company now hopes to bring the device to the point where it is ready to go into commercial production.
Fox explained the device is designed to fit on new or existing tractors with a minimum 40 horsepower engine, making it ideal for smaller growers.
The machine is relatively compact with a size of five and a half square feet and has a base weight of 1,000 pounds. Fox explained the small size allows it to work in small spaces with little head room. The machine is also being designed to keep the dust, often associated with the bedding process, to a minimum.
Fox said the prototype has already undergone some field testing in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Based on that feedback, he said the company is now working to develop attachments that will handle such things as self-loading, side delivery and a bottom fan delivery. Fox hopes these attachments will allow the shredder to meet the requirements of livestock growers, but for crops like strawberries, blueberries, ginseng and vegetables, the self-loading feature would free up a tractor that would normally be needed to load the shredder. Heavier bales can weigh up to 2,000 pounds and would require a tractor equipped with a pay loader.
As well, Fox explained the shredder, with an appropriate spreader attachment, could be used quite effectively by strawberry growers. Mulched material to control weeds could be chopped up to a desired length and deposited on the plants and between the rows without damage to the plant itself.
In fact, any farmer wanting to incorporate organic matter into the soil could spread the mulch with the spreader and then work it into the soil through subsequent tilling. Fox said it is difficult to say how long it will take before the attachments are ready for the market. “We're still very much in the experimental stage right now,” he said. “There is a lot of trial and error involved and some days you make a lot of progress and some days you don't.”
The firm currently has two employees, but Fox said if the machine progresses to the point of commercial production, it would mean a significant increase in year-round jobs. He added, “We're really excited about it and we're keeping our fingers crossed.”
(This is one of a series of articles prepared by the Prince Edward Island Agricultural
Awareness Committee and funded by the ADAPT Council and other partners to highlight new and innovative developments in the province's farming community.)
For more information, contact Phil Ferraro of the PEI Adapt Council at 902) 368-2005, adapt.pei@pei.sympatico.ca