The Need:

Crop harvesting machinery is crop-specific and focused on maximizing either grain or stalk collection, necessitating multiple passes with different, specialized machinery, to harvest and manage crop residue. Multiple passes with different machinery is costly, often prohibiting the diversification of a farmer’s crops, and leads to soil compaction as well as more greenhouse gas emissions. We need innovative and adjustable machinery that 1) considers the entire plant, streamlining the entire harvesting and crop processing workflow and 2) can harvest a variety of crops.

.

The Technology:

OSU inventors have developed a whole-plant harvester that completes the harvest in one pass and can be adjusted to harvest different types of crops. It consists of a NH 450SFI omni-directional forage header combined with a NH 340S+ baler, both mounted on an optimized undercarriage. The harvester is pulled by a large frame tractor (>300 hp) and incorporates a swing-style hitch and PTO driveline for smooth operation.

.

Benefits/Advantages:

• Harvest Multiple Crops with One Machine: The height of the harvester and its baler adjusts, allowing for optimized harvest for a variety of crops.
• Improved Yield and Quality: With the baler offset from the tractor and harvester, there is no crop damage from tractor wheels. The adjustable baler height also prevents ground contact for a higher quality and cleaner harvest.
• Efficiency and Energy Conservation: Harvest and crop residue management are handled in one pass, and an average power requirement of 130 hp, improves time, labor and energy efficiencies.
• High Feedstock Density: The produced bales with a high feedstock density (e.g., an average density of 21.5 lbs/ft3 for whole-plant corn) surpass the required density for semi-trailer transportation (13.5 lbs/ft3), optimizing transportation efficiency.

.

Our whole crop harvesting advancement will revolutionize crop collection by optimizing the cutting, proper conditioning, and uniform processing for all components of the crop. This holistic approach minimizes damage and/or nutrient loss and produces higher quality whole crop harvests. Already vetted in corn and cotton crops, our inventors have secured a $10 Million Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant from the USDA to further optimize this technology to include soybean, camelina, switchgrass and hemp.