Cover Crop Technology…
The prototype of the inter-seeding machine can be used for side-dressing of fertilizer
Michael Crane, Teagan Maloney and Tyler Phelps stand in front of the interseeding technology they helped develop. A fourth group member, Spencer von Flue, is not pictured. (Tyler Phelps, Oregon State University)
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Nick Andrews, organic vegetable specialist with the Oregon State University Extension Service, is one of the university's experts on cover crops and a founding director of the Western Cover Crops Council.
Cover crops are not grown for food or sale, but to improve the farm environment: “Cover crops protect soil from erosion, improve soil tillability, provide nitrogen, reduce weeds, provide pollen and nectar for beneficial insects, improve winter survival of mycorrhizae, compete with weeds, and provide other benefits,” Andrews said.
Unfortunately, growing cover crops can be difficult, especially in October when vegetables are still in the ground, which is why interseeding, a method of incorporating a cover crop into a production crop during the growing process, is promising.
“Many of our favorite vegetables are still in the field in October, and I don't think anyone would abandon beautiful crops like tomatoes, eggplant, corn, squash or peppers in September to plant a cover crop,” Andrews explains. “When you interseed cover crops with standing vegetables, exciting possibilities open up.”
Andrews has spent the last few years researching interseeding equipment to make it easier for small and medium-sized vegetable growers to plant cover crops. The problem, he says, is that the specialized equipment costs “upwards of $30,000.”
“We're trying to find equipment that will bring the price down to around $10,000 and also perform other functions on the farm, such as direct seeding vegetables and topdressing fertilizer.”
Engineering the solution
Like any good professional, Andrews knows when to ask for help, and thankfully, there's a new generation of engineers at OSU ready to tackle the problem.
Students in the Engineering Capstone course (fourth-year students in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University) apply their skills to real-world problems, from product design to prototyping to long-term strategies. This year, four students put their skills to the test in the world of cover crop technology, specifically interseeding, by building a prototype that could be used for fertilizer sidedressing, which applies fertilizer below the soil. It also needed to be affordable for small and medium-sized vegetable growers in Oregon.
Three mechanical and manufacturing engineering students, Tyler Phelps, Spencer Von Flue and Michael Crain, and mechanical engineering student Teagan Maloney, jumped at the opportunity to work on this applied capstone project.
“I was drawn to the practical aspect,” Phelps says, “the tangible impact. Ultimately, it impacts small farmers and it impacts local farms.”
The team “loved being able to engage directly with consumers,” Phelps said.
Commercial interseeding tractors are built for the large-scale agriculture of the Midwest and don't fit the needs of smaller farmers in terms of both price and scale, so Andrews has been experimenting with smaller-scale technology that can be attached to tractors farmers already own.
“When this job was taken over, most of our team knew little to nothing about interseeding or the technology involved,” von Flue explained as students demonstrated their prototypes at the OSU Organic Winter Cereal and Cover Crops Field Day in June.
“There was definitely a big learning curve for our team in developing the initial knowledge of farm equipment, techniques and terminology,” Phelps said. “That was a challenge, as was our $800 budget.”
“The Capstone team was given the skeleton (of the fertilizer side dresser) and asked, 'Can we make this better?'” Phelps explained.
“We had a lot of different concepts,” von Flueh said, “some expensive, some not so expensive. This was our brainchild.”
Successful projects
Phelps said the hands-on nature of the project “was a lot of fun.” While other fourth-year engineering students were in the classroom doing their graduate work, they were out on the farm. They not only designed a prototype, they built it, tested it and improved it.
“I got to use power tools and a welder,” Phelps said, his eyes lighting up.
That said, “there are challenges in the assembly department,” Phelps said. “When you're putting things together, things rarely go according to plan.”
Still, they were successful: “We've now improved performance by 30 percent,” von Flue announced proudly. Improvements included soil conservation, improved wheels, and depth-adjustable tines that mix the seeds into the soil.
Their work probably won't be found on the market anytime soon, but that wasn't their immediate goal.
“Our job was to create a blueprint that farmers could use as they pleased. They might take one idea or they might use them all,” Phelps said, explaining that they wanted it to be something that producers could assemble on their own farms and customize to fit their needs.
“Their ideas for improving this equipment were great and they executed it well,” Andrews said, adding that they plan to continue incorporating feedback they got from the students at the end of the process. One farmer has already borrowed the equipment to use on his own farm.
All four engineering students graduated from OSU this June. “We didn’t win any senior thesis awards,” Phelps acknowledged, noting that those tend to go to teams “who launch rockets or build race cars.” But the satisfaction of giving back to their local community outweighed any formal recognition.
“The end goal is to make this technology more accessible to small farmers,” Phelps said. “It feels good to do something useful. From my perspective, if I can help someone, that's a good start.”
— Oregon State University Extension
