Re: So what is a spader? (fwd)

[Larry London <london@metalab.unc.edu>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 06:49:27 -0500
From: Allan Balliett <igg@igg.com>
To: osalt@teleport.com
Subject: Re: So what is a spader?

>Will Newman II, osalt@teleport.com wrote:

>>Sue Andersen wrote:
>>"How's a spader work? What's it look like? Will it turn in a cover crop
>>and incorporate compost? Does it leave you with a good enough seedbed
>>for fine seeded crops? What HP does it require? Where do you get 'em?"

>A spader looks a lot like a rotary tiller, but instead of rotating
>"tines" it has "spades" on a double cam mounting. The spades look like
>small shovel blades - shaped like the Heinz food company shield in their
>logo - and move in a mostly up and dowm motion, with a little tilt at
>the bottom of the stroke.
>
>The effect is like pushing a shovel (hence the name shove-l) straight
>into the ground, rocking the handle back and forth, then drawing the
>shovel back out. All without turning the soil over. The action opens up
>compacted soil and allows air and water in, while doing minimal damage
>to soil organisms and microlife.
>
>It won't "turn in" a cover crop, but it will chop it up some and push
>some of it down into the soil, where it will break down better then
>sitting on top. It will incorporate compost, as loose material on top of
>the soil falls into the openings made as the spader travels along the
>soil bed.
>
>It will make a pretty fine seedbed if you make 2 or 3 passes, but I
>caution you to find better ways to plant fine seeded crops, as
>pulverizing the soil into a fine seedbed is inherently very destructive
>to the soil.
>
>We work the bed to baseball-to-golfball sized pieces (there is, of
>course a lot of smaller stuff mixed in), then plant into the soil. For
>fine seeds we make a grove 2-3 inches wide, fill it with a soil mix
>(much like our starting mix), mix the seeds with sand and spread that
>into a groove in the soil mix in the trench.
>
>The horsepower required depends on the spader (size) and your soil (how
>hard). Ours is 3 feet wide, with 4 shovels about 6 inches wide at the
>top and 4 inches wide at the bottom. It requires 20-22 HP.
>
>You can get them as walk-behind (probably 8-15 HP) or standard 3-point
>implements. We got ours from Farrari Tractor CIE in California. This is
>a one-man operation, I think. We met him first at the Ecological Farming
>Conference in California years ago. I think he still goes there every
>year. We've seen him at other ag events, too. He is very active on the
>west coast. I imagine he would work with anybody in the country. He was
>very accomodating with us and we recommend him highly.
>
>Good growing,
>
>Will Newman II
>Natural Harvest Farm
>Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust
>www.osalt.org

Eugene Canales of Ferarri Tractor will be a featured speaker at the Oct 1-3
Mid-Atlantic Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Conf. which is held outside
of Baltimore-Washington in Charles Town. With Joel Salatin, his
presentations will center around the production, harvesting, and processing
of grains on a small holding. He will have a lot of small, appropriate
equipment from Europe as part of his workshops. More info, as it is avail
will appear at www.igg.com/bdnow. (or email me to be on the direct info
list!)

We also have one of his spaders! It's wonderful if you can find a tractor
that will pull slow enough. 

Allan Balliett