Currently, animal forage is harvested utilizing inefficient methods that damage the forage crop and significantly increase costs to both farmers and customers. Forage is usually harvested either by direct grazing or in the case of hay, cutting the plants very low to enable sun drying accompanied with raking and baling. Repeated animal and machinery traffic over forage fields leads to significant soil compaction and damage to the plants. FOI Group, LLC’s innovative, patent-pending Prairie Grass System (USPTO patent filing US 2023/0345877 A1) provides an innovative alternative that enables farmers to harvest forage efficiently while increasing crop yields, forage nutritional value, and long-term field production.
Prairie Grass System’s automatic, rotating agricultural system rotates around a central pivot point in either a full rotation or a partial arc to irrigate, plant and/or harvest a field. The agricultural system includes a center pivot frame, a plurality of frame segments connected to each other, and a feed storage bin connected to the center pivot frame and the frame segments. The frame segment includes a section frame including wheels to enable movements, a cutter trolley beam that extends in a radial direction of the section frame, a cutterhead coupled to the cuttertrolley beam to cut forage or crop, a radial conveyor that moves the cut forage or crop in the radial direction of the section frame, and a cutter conveyor that moves the cut forage or crop from the cutterhead to the radial conveyor.
The Prairie Grass System enables farmers to maximum production from high quality forage crops such as Eastern Gamma Grass that are typically damaged by low-cut harvesting and direct animal grazing. The system’s cutter heads are mounted to an overhead support frame to permit cutting forage at custom heights for optimal plant growth and harvest yield. Cutting forage at several feet height rather than at the base enables more rapid plant regrowth and higher quality feed. And at the end of the growing season, the Prairie Grass System cutter head may be lowered to enable planting and optimal growth of alternate winter forage crops.
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