Mobile Incenerator Burns Straw Off Fields

Mobile Incenerator Burns Srtaw Off Fields CROPS New Techniques 18-3-25 Straw burning was banned in Great Britain starting in 1993. Other European countries have similar bans. Farmers and manufacturers are scrambling to come up with new ways to eliminate or reduce the negative effects of crop residue left on fields. One innovative company recently unveiled a prototype mobile straw burner that travels through the field, incinerating straw at temperatures over 1,000? and using the heat generated to "sterilize" the soil, killing virtually all weed seeds and disease organ-isms. Adrian Harvey, Christopher Harvey, and Philip Bush of West Sussex, England, hope to have their mobile straw burner on the market within two years. It uses a patented new combustion jet to incinerate straw as it's chopped inside a stainless steel chamber. The chamber is preheated with a diesel burner to get up to the high operating temperatures, and then the process is self-sustaining with heat generated from the straw. Damp patches, or green straw, may require an extra diesel heat boost. However, at temperatures of over 1,000?, Adrian Harvey says the burner leaves little ash and produces almost no smoke. Flames from the burning straw are funneled down to an 18-ft. wide hood that heats the top 2 to 4 in. of soil up to 500?, killing 90 percent of weed seeds and disease spores. One drawback is that the machine re-quires at least a 180 hp. tractor and can do just 25 acres a day. An optional "burn-only" machine that just burns off the straw and kills only the weeds on the surface, will work at the speed of a round baler, according to Harvey. (Farm Contractor Magazine)

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