Electric Tractor Cultivating
About 2 seasons ago we invested in a cultivating tractor. We had been doing all of our weeding by hand, but we started to get behind a lot of the time, and were looking to expand our growing space. We knew that there were a lot of options out there- Farmall made some good ol’ cultivating tractors as well as Allis Chalmers. (There are many others too, but these two seem to be the most readily available these days) One thing we knew about cultivating tractors was they were generally gas powered as opposed to diesel. This equates to less power, the inability to run biodiesel, and just the same standard chugg-a-lug of old tractor motors.
During the investigation of what tractor to look for, I came across a great resource for converting an old Allis Chalmers G from gas to electric. That’s right- 48 volts DC!
So I started the hunt for an old AC G with no motor. Came across one outside of Corvallis, Oregon. Bought it for $800 and then spent another $2500 on the motor, batteries, and other parts for the conversion.
Over the next 2 months I stripped the tractor down to parts, refurbished anything that needed repaired, and then put it back together and added the electric components.
The next question was deciding what cultivating setup to use. I talked to several other farmers to see what they used and consulted the book “Steel in the Field” and came to the conclusion that a basket weeder was the way to go. The basket weeder works great in lighter soils- loams, sand, silt- but does have some limitations in heavier rocky soils. The basket weeder also works best when weeds are at the white hair stage. In other words when the weeds are still just emerging. If you have an established stand of grasses or other weeds then a tool bar with sweeps might be a better bet. (I’m setting such a tool bar up this season and will post about it once it’s finished.)
So check out the video of the basket weeder in action and listen to the quiet purrrrr of the electric motor. Another thing you might notice is the tank mounted on the back of the tractor’s battery box. This is used to spray fish fertilizer as I weed. It runs off it’s own separate 12 volt battery. This way I can cultivate and fertilize in one pass. Any other questions about the tractor and it’s conversion just email me.
4 comments
Hey, thanks for directing me to your regular site. I appreciate reading about your farming work. We are going to be planting a small blueberry patch (maybe 100 plants) in Northern Minnesota this summer, and I enjoy finding out more about how people are doing green farming. I live in South Dakota, and people out here are pretty committed to standard non organic - energy intensive agriculture, which isn’t a great thing.
So thanks for sharing your stuff,
Milt Lee
[...] we started to tractor cultivate with the Electric G, we needed to make sure that the spacing between rows was very precise and consistent. Many larger [...]
We are in the process of converting a G. We found one without an engine 8 hours away. They guy was restoring it, so cleaned it up for us. We got it last week and have some questions.
First, DH is great with wood, good with plumbing and household electric, but not experienced/talented with mechanics.
So, he has a friend (5 hours away) who builds electric vehicles as a business, so we aren’t going strictly the EVA route. The friend is actually building the battery. To get the gear ratios, we blocked the axle up, put it in gears and try to count revolutions of the spindle in the clutch housing to the wheel. But, the spindle doesn’t turn when the wheel is turned. Do you know, does that mean we have a bad transmission?
Did you just follow the instructions, or are you experienced enough to know why they chose the 3 to 1 (looks like) pulley ratios? The friend thinks we could get by with fewer batteries is we went 1 to 1. I am thinking maybe the 3 to 1 gives slower speeds? or faster speeds?
DH wants to know whether you have to stop to change gears. I think that except for going from forward to backward, you don’t change gears on this - just one “gear”??????
Thank you for any and all advice.
And your blog template is beautiful.
What a great article! It makes perfect sense for the farming community to be committed to sustainability while also controlling costs. Have you thought about adding a solar canopy to the tractor to go off-grid, reduce electric bills, and add shade. If so, check out http://www.sungosystems.com, we specialize in custom solar charging systems for mobile applications. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning. Keep up the great work.
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