High Mowing’s Seed Cleaning Facility
Seed quality is the cornerstone of High Mowing Organic Seeds. Everyone here at High Mowing works in some way to grow, trial, sell, or ship well-adapted organic seed of wide varietal selection that germinates well. Our success depends on clean seed.
The seed cleaning process at High Mowing is two-tiered. We clean seed crops in the field before they come inside for germination testing and further cleaning in the seed cleaning room. For growers interested in seed production, field cleaning is really important. Field cleaning for both dry and wet seeded crops requires little additional farm infrastructure. With some screen material (1/2 inch, ¼ inch, or window-sized) and lumber from the hardware store, box screens can be made. Field cleaning attempts to isolate everything that resembles seed in size and weight. With screens and fans, we do a thorough cleaning to remove all light chaff and light non-viable seed. Screening and winnowing are repeated until the seed appears mostly free of foreign matter.
After field cleaning, seed comes inside. Our in-house lab first conducts a “dirty” germination test. The dirty germination helps determine the extent to which the seed needs to be cleaned. If a dirty germination test returns results of only 50% there are probably lots of nonviable seed in the lot.
We grow and clean relatively small lots of seed, so our cleaning equipment is tiny compared to the grand grain cleaning operations throughout the Midwest and Western states. At our scale, smaller cleaners do the same job and maintain good seed quality. We use a couple of different tools to clean non-viable seed from living seed. The cleaner we use depends on the crop and amount of seed to be cleaned. We have a few types of mechanical cleaners - primarily we use two Clipper-type cleaners and an Oliver gravity separator. We also have a spiral cleaner to separate round, viable seed such as our brassica crops from flatter, lighter (dead) seed.
Clipper seed cleaners are old technology—tried and true. Clipper has produced seed cleaning equipment since the mid 1800s. The Clipper at first glance seems complicated. However, after watching it work, it becomes remarkably intuitive. The Clipper uses two different sized screens that shift back and forth. The top screen separates out large foreign matter, allowing viable seed and smaller matter to fall through to the next smaller screen. Small inert matter falls through the bottom screen, leaving anything that is a similar weight and size to the seed. The seed shakes down to a chamber that air blows through. The fanned air separates light, nonviable seed from the viable seed. Viable seed falls into a container at the bottom of the machine. This process is usually repeated a few times to ensure that the seed is thoroughly cleaned.
On the Clipper, everything is variable. We use dozens of different sized screens depending on crop type. The amount of air fanned through the Clipper can be controlled with precision. The Clipper is a very refined version of the field winnowing method mentioned in a previous article which uses a box fan, a square bucket, and three large plastic totes. Our seed cleaner, Craig, keeps meticulous notes regarding screen sizes and air flow used for crop types and even individual lots.
We also clean with an Oliver Laboratory gravity separator. The Laboratory model can sort up to 500 lbs of dry seed per hour. The gravity table separates out light-weight nonviable seed as well as heavy foreign matter, like rocks, from the viable seed. The table shakes and blows air through the bottom of the table to distribute matter of different weights to different parts of the table. Light, nonviable seed and chaff sifts to the bottom of the table. Rocks and other heavy foreign matter gather at the top of the table. The table shakes into partitions that lead the light, heavy, and mostly viable seed into segregated containers.
As with the Clipper, the controls on the Oliver are highly sensitive and can be dialed in for precision. Craig, our seed cleaner, has learned the subtle nuances of our seed cleaning machines over the past six years. To offer the cleanest seed possible we require all of the parameters of precision for which these machines were designed. Craig finesses the Clipper and Oliver like Picasso with brush in hand, each stroke removing chaff, rocks, and dead seed from living, viable seed.
Categories: Seed Saving and Production & About High Mowing Organic Seeds
Posted On: October 9 2013
Posted By: High Mowing Organic Seeds
Search
Recent Posts
Categories
- About High Mowing Organic Seeds
- Articles by Farmer Paul Betz
- Articles by Megen Hall
- Ask The Expert
- Beginner Gardeners' Guide
- Breeding / Research Program
- Commercial Growing
- Contests
- Covid-19 Updates
- Crop Talk
- Events
- Farm Ethics
- Farmer Authors
- GMOs
- Greenhouses
- Growing Tips
- Health and Wellness
- Kids and Gardening
- Philosophy
- Plant Diseases
- Plant Pests
- Recipes
- Seed Bin Article - 2011
- Seed Saving and Production
- Soil Health
- Story of a Seed
- Trials
- Uncategorized
- Variety Highlights
- Winter Growing
Archives
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- January 2008
Recent Comments
- Leela on Our Grower's Guide Giveaway
- Linda Sue Warner on Our Grower's Guide Giveaway
- Lyric McKnight on Our Grower's Guide Giveaway
- Sandra McFadden on Our Grower's Guide Giveaway
- Stacey S on Our Grower's Guide Giveaway
My Wish Lists
2 Comments