Organic combine?

I remember back in the '60s getting bags of weed seeds from another neighbour's tractor-drawn combine to spread around my duck swamp. His fields didn't need spraying, partly because the combine harvested weeds as well as grain.

I'd like to try growing beans or wheat without pesticides, don't want to make an organic mess like the field of the guy next door. Any chance of getting a small combine which does a good job of capturing weed seeds?

You'd really hafta be able to think outside the box to like this idea. I like it and think I could do a lower cost alternative by removing the chaffers and sieves and shutting down the fan in a 6600 or 6620 and have a burned out 8820 sitting at the farm with an electric motor on it to run the chaffers and sieves. I'd have a feed mill behind the 8820 with a small screen in it to try to destroy the weeds seeds collected. My other idea was to roast the chaff before feeding it, kinda like you roast soybeans Of course, I'd need to modify the 6620 to handle the extra "stuff" by maybe putting a larger clean grain elevator and grain tank on it(maybe off the burned out 8820). Dunno how well it'd work....

You can adjust the combine to gather the small weed seeds and screen them out at the bin site.

I would work harder on not growing the weeds to begin with. Much of the weed seed will fall out at the header anyhow, you won't gain as much as you think by collecting the weed seeds.

--->Paul

Sometimes classical cultivation doesn't work here due to late spring and early summer weather. Seems like more than sometimes, more like most times.

Gerald J.