OT a little.........

Dellbertt · Oct 15, 2008

Around here we have a lot of squash, tomatoes and peppers grown on raised rows with black plastic. The plastic is laid down from a large roll on a tractor. At the end of the season the stakes are removed then the foliage is brushed chopped and the plastic is picked up by hand using many many workers.

Isnt there a piece of equipment that could pick up the plastic on a roll instead of being so labor intensive.

Hugh MacKay · Oct 15, 2008

Dellbertt: I don't have any photos, however I've seen several on farm fabrications designed for lifting the plastic and rolling it on spools. As I recall most of them were mounted on 3 point hitch, spool was powered by a hydraulic motor off tractor remote. Tractor straddled the row of plastic, some had disks on flat designed to lift plastic out of soil at the edges.

The spool was quite high, probably 6' up with an implement tire as an idler under the spool, designed to hold center of plastic high, thus allowing any soil to fall off the edges. I've seen these working, never used one, thus I have no idea how troublesome the operation might be.

Dellbertt · Oct 15, 2008

The plastic that I have seen used is flimsy and single use. It seems like a better quality plastic that could be used several times would be cost effective.

Or better yet, instead of plastic, how about making the ground cover out of duo layered biodegradable. The bottom layer (next to the soil) composed of time released fertilizer and plant food and the top layer recycled organic paper that could be tilled under at the end of the season as compost.

TomH in PA · Oct 15, 2008

Not sure where you live but I'm guessing the labor is either illegal aliens or Amish children. Labor intensive doesn't necessarily mean expensive...

mazemeister · Oct 15, 2008

http://www.cropcareequipment.com/plastic-lifter-wrapper.php
like that?

what we do is use a 2 row potato digger to lift the plastic and loosen the soil, then it's much easier to pull and roll up by hand. we're only talking a couple acres so we try to use what we've got.

504-2 · Oct 15, 2008

Dellbertt, The levee district here has to clean up all of the plastic they put down this year trying to keep the Mississippi in its banks, and they are using a round hay baler. Kevin

Zach Bouchard · Oct 16, 2008

I work at a Raspberry/Blueberry far, in washington and they have a plastic roller that they use to roll it up after they fumigate the new fields.

OT a little.........

Dellbertt

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Hugh MacKay

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Dellbertt

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TomH in PA

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mazemeister

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504-2

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Zach Bouchard

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