{"id":1640,"date":"2014-11-15T15:33:25","date_gmt":"2014-11-15T14:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2015-10-16T08:59:23","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T06:59:23","slug":"pedal-powered-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.notechmagazine.com\/2014\/11\/pedal-powered-farming.html","title":{"rendered":"Pedal Powered Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"culticycle<\/a><\/p>\n

The Culticycle is a pedal powered tractor that can cultivate, seed, spray, or pull gear for most low horsepower tasks. We talked about the first prototype<\/a> almost two years ago. A new version has now been released, built around a modular tractor frame. Tim Cooke explains us how it’s built and how it works:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

“The math behind the idea is nothing more than observing that a lot of the work a tractor does – shallow cultivation, seeding, flame weeding – requires very little of its available horsepower; and since these jobs are best done between 3 and 5 mph, a bike can be geared down low enough that a human can produce the necessary horsepower.<\/p>\n

Take the cranks, seat, and handlebars from a bike and center them in a 4-wheel, lightweight, modular tractor frame: the obvious frame material is telestrut. For the front end use 20″ bike wheels and forks. You need about a foot of clearance but you want a low center of gravity and as much traction as possible: get 25 x 8 ATV tires for the rear, ideally with aluminum rims.”<\/p>\n

\"culticycle<\/a><\/p>\n

“Assume you’ll pedal at 60 rpm and use a gear ratio of about 2.2 on the cranks to 3 on the differential. Now you have 25\/12 x \u03c0 for one revolution of the tire, x 22\/30 gear ratio, x 60 rpm, x 60 minutes, divided by 5280 feet per mile = 3.3 mph. Pedal at 70 rpm and you’re at 3.8 mph. Meanwhile you’re not hunched and twisted and causing joint damage, you’re getting aerobic exercise.<\/p>\n

And if your farm is bigger with tighter time constraints, have 2 or 3 of these machines set up specifically for those 2 or 3 row spacings that you use the most, and put the interns or volunteers on them. For instance one with a basket weeder, one with sweeps, one with finger weeders. Or fatten the front tires and throw a 12 foot aluminum ladder across the chassis and hang those big plastic harvest bins from each end, out over the beds, for lettuce harvesting: you could put 100 pounds on each end of the ladder.”<\/p>\n

See the culticyle in action in this video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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