Progress report for FNC24-1419
Project Information
My wife and I are beginning farmers who just finished our 3rd season of running our 1 acre diversified vegetable farm. We currently rent land at an incubator farm with 15 other small scale farmers. We originally discovered our excitement for organic farming through a farmer training program in Central Oregon in 2018 and have been farming ever since. The mission of our farm is to develop reciprocal relationships with our soils, food, and community through raising chemical free, nutrient-dense vegetables. We hope to continue to gradually expand our farm and eventually focus on growing storage crops and winter growing so that we can strengthen the local food system of Minnesota during our "off season". We hope to purchase our own land in the next 2-3 years. My wife is the main farmer while I work part time for our farm as I also have an off farm job. Through my off farm job I have developed and refined a variety of skills that will help me succeed in this grant project. The first of these skills is mechanical "know how", meaning I am able to take apart machines, identify problems and issues, fix those problems, and then put everything back together. I do not come from a mechanical background so to learn these skills I have read manuals, watched Youtube videos, called other farmers, and used discussion forums to gradually build these skills. I still do not identify as a mechanic, but I have successfully repaired and maintained over 12 different machines for the last 3 years with no major issues at my current job. The second skill that will help me succeed with this project is that I am an educator. In my current job, I teach beginning farmers how to use equipment, build irrigation systems, prep their vegetable fields, and many more farming specific skills. Most of the people that I work with do not speak english as their first language so this means that I have also learned how to use plain non technical terms when explaining different topics. This is a key teaching method that I will also use in my videos as I want the material to be understandable for anyone watching. I am not as familiar with electrical knowledge which is why I have recruited two mentors to help with this section of the project.
There are two problems that this project would address. The first
problem is currently there are no easy to understand guides on
how to convert this type of weeding tractor from gas power to
electric power. This may seem like a very specific problem but it
becomes more important once you understand how common of a
tractor this is on diversified vegetable farms. For example, in a
100 mile radius from my farm I currently know of 5 other
established vegetables farms that use this same exact tractor to
do the majority of weeding on their farm. Along these same lines
if you look at the current Youtube videos (which only show people
using these electric tractor and not how they completed the
conversion) they have nearly 22,000 views which tells me that
there is interest in an electric version of these tractors. The
second problem this project addresses is that there are no
affordable or electric weeding tractors currently on the market.
The only modern tractor currently available costs over $33,000
and is diesel powered. For my project a farmer would only need to
spend around $9000 to complete a fossil fuel free weeding
tractor.
Solutions-Demonstration and Education project
For this project I will create a video series that shows a "step
by step" process of how to complete this electric conversion.
Within each video I plan to include a supplies list with sourcing
information, a budget of how much everything costs, and a
detailed tools list of what tools you would need to complete the
steps in each video. I will use plain, non technical language in
each video so that no prior mechanical knowledge is needed to
understand each video. The intended audience for these videos is
other small to medium sized vegetable farmers who want to move
away from fossil fuel use on their farm while still having the
efficiencies of tractor cultivation. Ideally, I hope that these
videos will empower other farmers who do not usually attempt a
DIY project due to lack of resource or access to a mentor. The
video series will be posted to Youtube so that it is free and
easily accessible to anyone interested. The video's will also be
shared through our farm instagram and facebook accounts. In
addition to posting the videos I plan to have two in person
opportunities for people to learn about the project. One of these
opportunities will be a field day for other farmers, specifically
those at the incubator farm where we currently rent land (usually
15-20 farm teams each year), to test drive the tractor and get
some hands on experience with it. The second in person
opportunity would be to do a presentation at the annual
Sustainable Farming Association Conference in February. I believe
this would be an ideal conference to share this project at
because it attracts a good mix of farmers and educators in our
area.
Objectives
1) Successfully demonstrate and record the entire conversion of
an Allis Chalmers Model G tractor from gas to electric
2) Publish a 5 part video series that provides "Step by Step"
guidance, including budgets, supplies lists, and tool lists
3) Host one field day during the season for other farmers to
learn about and test drive the new electric tractor
4) Present the results/final process of the project at the annual
Sustainable Farming Association Conference
Research
So far in this project I have spoken with ampRevolt (the electric car company who is creating a kit for this tractor conversion) and they are working on creating a new kit for a lithium based battery set up. They currently have a kit for lead-acid batteries but we have decided that it make sense to go with lithium as they will last longer and are easier to maintain (this was the original plan for this grant). I last spoke with ampRevolt in early October and I have check in meeting scheduled with them in early November to see where they are at in their process. I have discovered a new resource for this project that goes into detail about the conversion process using lithium based batteries that was completed in 2023. Here is the link to this resource in case others find it useful (https://www.instructables.com/Electric-Tractor-Conversion-Allis-G-Cultivator/). If for some reason ampRevolt is not able to put a full kit together than my back up plan would be to use this guide to complete this project.
I have also visited with one farm mentor who has already completed this conversion project on their Allis G tractor. They first converted their tractor to electric in the early 2000's using a lead-acid based battery bank. In 2013 they switched to a lithium based battery bank and are happy with the results. Here is some advice that they told me during our visit:
- Lithium based battery bank uses less batteries so the tractor will weigh less and have less traction. If you are only doing light cultivating this should not be an issue but if you were trying to plow or do heavy cultivation you may have to add weight to the tractor.
- They found that their run time on the tractor was about the same as the lead acid batteries (about 1.5 hours doing cultivating) but the recharge time is much faster with the lithium batteries. With lead acid they had to wait about 8-10 hours for the batteries to fully charge so they could use the tractor again. With the lithium batteries, it only takes 1.5-2 hours for the batteries to fully charge. This means they could use the tractor 2-3 times per day rather than just once.
- some routine maintenance includes: cleaning battery connections, cleaning brushes on the electric motor, replacing display gauges
- When they switched to lithium they found that they needed a new controller, they had to reprogram their charger, they needed heavier duty fuses and switches throughout their system
I plan to visit one more farmer mentor who has also completed this conversion on their tractor this fall.
I plan to complete the actual conversion of our tractor in late November/early December. So far I have planned the process out to be a a 5 part video series. Part 1 will be removing the gasoline engine and cleaning/preparing the tractor for the new electrical parts, Part 2 will be installing the "mechanical parts" and the electric motor, Part 3 will be building the battery platform and installing the batteries, Part 4 will be installing the remaining electrical componets, and Part 5 will be a test drive and how it compares to the gas powered version. Once the project is complete and the video's are posted on youtube we will be able to see how many people are viewing these videos and using them as a resource.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
We have not done outreach for this project yet. The main way outreach will happen for this project is through posting our youtube video's and getting accepted to present at a local ag based conference.