As an agronomy consultant, Steve Watts designs experiments to be tested in potato fields.
When the Hampton, Prince Edward Island, man was looking for a way to collect his samples faster from his test plots, he ended up inventing a small potato harvester.
Watts’s main area of business as the founder of Genesis Crop Systems is working with P.E.I. potato producers to find ways to grow more profitable crops and soften the environmental footprint associated with the industry.
During the spring, Watts is busy setting up various experiments in test plots in grower’s fields. Most of the rows he digs in fields are about 200 feet.
It’s in the fall when Watts’s life gets a lot more hectic as he tries to retrieve his samples from the fields before the grower comes along to harvest the crop.
“In most cases, the growers have one priority at that time, and that’s to get their crop out, so I can’t be delaying their activities.”
In the summer of 2013, Watts wanted to identify a mechanical solution that could help collect his samples easier and faster. Up to that point, he was doing everything by hand.
After a brief internet search failed to find a solution that would suit his needs, Watts sat down one evening with a piece of paper and a pencil and begin to sketch out his idea for a small harvester that would allow him to collect a single row of potatoes.
Receiving funding from the Agriculture Research and Innovation Program under the Canada-P.E.I. Growing Forward 2 agreement, Watts worked with Bernard’s Welding in Bedeque, P.E.I., to develop the harvester.
Now, the harvester allows him to get more potatoes out of the ground in an hour than he could in two or three days working by himself, Watts says.
“It basically drives down the row of potatoes and lifts the potatoes out… lets them fall onto the ground behind it or collect them in a container.”
He uses the harvester for about 50 to 60 percent of the work he does. But he plans to find ways to use it more as he designs his experiments for next year.
Farmers think his small harvester is kind of unique, said Watts.
“They chuckle and say ‘Take you a long time to dig a 50-acre field with that,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, but it’s still better than going at it by hand.’”
Source: The Guardian (Charlottetown, P.E.I.)