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Montana rancher
and inventor develops native grass seed harvester |
Bozeman, Montana
October 30, 2006
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Lee and Maggie Arbuckle
and their Arbuckle Native Seedster during field
tests at Bruce Seed Farms near Townsend. (Photo
by Randy Wimberg.) |
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Montana rancher and inventor
Lee Arbuckle may soon
change the nation's market for native grass seed, a
tricky-to-harvest crop worth hundreds of millions and vital to
restoring wildlands.
With the help of the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center at
Montana State University,
Arbuckle and his wife Maggie have spent the last five years
researching and developing a native grass seed harvester. The
Arbuckle Native Seedster will be manufactured in Billings, with
the first one on the market in 2007.
"We're going to change the economics of the native grass seed
industry," Arbuckle said. "The Seedster isn't a combine or a
stripper, but a new-fangled plucker. This harvester isn't a
better mousetrap; it's the first one."
Native grass seed is a growing market. Federal, state and local
governments purchase large amounts of native seed, as do
ranchers and landscapers. Such seed produces grasses that are
prized for their drought and wildfire resistance, ability to
stabilize eroding soil, desirability as forage and reseeding
capacity. Much of the seed market is for the restoration of
lands disturbed by mining, road construction and fires.
The Plant Materials Program of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture estimated that in 2001 more than 19 million pounds
of PMP released varieties of native seed species sold for $94
million, representing only a fraction of the market.
Some native grass seed species can be harvested easily; others
cannot and command prices in excess of $20 per pound. Arbuckle's
invention can handle many species, but excels with
difficult-to-harvest seed.
Modern combines harvest wheat by cutting the wheat stem with the
grain head attached and then separating the two. That process
isn't effective with many species of native grass.
"If you tried to harvest some native grass seed with a combine,
it would plug in 30 seconds," Arbuckle said.
Nationally, more than 100 economically significant native
grasses are difficult to harvest with conventional equipment.
Lacking good commercial technology, producers have often
"cobbled together" machines or even hand harvested, Arbuckle
said.
Rather than cutting the grass with the seed head attached like a
combine, Arbuckle's Native Seedster skips the separation process
and just "plucks" the seed, Arbuckle said.
The plucking is accomplished with a simple spinning brush and
combing drum. After harvest, the Seedster leaves the rest of the
plant intact as forage and ground cover.
Arbuckle and his wife Maggie designed the Seedster to be easy to
operate and quickly adaptable. In field tests, it has recovered
a high percentage of seed and done well at controlling
contamination from other seed.
The idea for a harvester came to Arbuckle five years ago when he
got a particularly good crop of native grass seed on his
third-generation family ranch near Alzada. The seed was
valuable, but he didn't have an efficient way to harvest it.
At that point in their lives, the Arbuckles were in
semi-retirement after having worked in Honduras with the United
States Agency for International Development. Lee Arbuckle has a
degree in agricultural economics and an MBA. He has spent years
working in agricultural and rural development overseas.
The couple never planned to spend five years building a
harvester, but like a barbed needle-and-thread grass seed, once
the idea got in their heads they couldn't pull it out.
They've had help from the USDA in the form of Small Business
Innovation Research (SBIR) grants, as well as the SBIR support
program in Montana. They assembled a team to fast track their
research and development, getting key help from design engineer
Wade Wolf and grass scientist Brian Sindelar.
With a grant from the Montana Board of Research and
Commercialization, Arbuckle is also classifying native grass
seeds by their harvest characteristics - something that has
never been done. With oversight from Sindelar, a native grass
seed expert, 153 species of Montana native grasses have been
classified.
The Montana Manufacturing Extension Center provided critical
advice on design and manufacturing through Dale Detrick, based
in Billings.
"Dale and MMEC have been a spectacular resource for us. MMEC
support made the Seedster design simpler and easier to
manufacture," Arbuckle said. "The Seedster is a simple,
inexpensive, durable, very-adjustable machine and the parts are
replaceable." |
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