Equipment for Small Farms

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

Farms continue to grow larger and larger due to economies of scale and large equipment to cover a lot of ground quickly and efficiently. But what about technology for small growers? Twisted River Farms growers Steve Strasheim says simple innovations, like the paper pot transplanter, have been instrumental in saving time and energy.

Strasheim… “ We've invested into like the paper pot transplanter, that's helped a lot in terms of like the transplant time, because that takes a lot of time. If you don't have like a water wheel planter and a tractor, which we weren't at the scale to need that, you're on your hands and knees popping plugs in. Well, paper pot transplanter if you, if anybody's not familiar, and basically you just plant your seeds into like a paper tray that looks like a honeycomb in the plastic tray. So it looks very similar when it's in the greenhouse to what your typical cell plug trays would look like, but when you take it out to the field, you put that tray on this orange caddy looking thing, and you kind of pull it backwards towards you, and it's kind of angled. The chains unfurl and go into the soil as you pull it backwards, and so, and then it covers the soil with some press wheels behind it, so there's no real moving parts to the thing other than a couple little wheels on it. And you can transplant as fast as you can, walk backwards, and it's just a slick tool that has cut hours and hours and hours off of our transplanting.”

That’s the owner and operator of Twisted River Farms, Steve Strasheim.