The Roller-Based Machine that Converts Invasive Plants into Non-Regrowable Biomass

As an engineering student, I'm developing a machine that uses rollers to process invasive plant species like cheatgrass into a non-regrowable biomass. This method is safer and more efficient than traditional techniques like using herbicides or setting controlled fires, and it helps prevent the spread of invasive plants while promoting healthy ecosystems. My machine features rollers with a crank mechanism that can effortlessly transform cheatgrass into disposable biomass. Furthermore, I aim to make the machine smaller and portable, so that it can be used by communities to combat invasive plants more easily and efficiently. Do you think a portable machine that can convert cheatgrass into disposal biomass using rollers would be a valuable addition to the environmental community? Would you consider using such a product to combat invasive plants in your area?

Interesting, and how do you imagine this could kill seeds?

I reckon the time to use it is before the seeds are viable. The flowering point is a good time to swoop in and annihilate plants that you don't want, because they've just put much of their energy into reproduction. You tend to maximise biomass this way, too, as lots of annual species start to drop their leaves after flowering.

As someone who has spent perhaps hundreds of hours removing invasive plants manually, I would absolutely consider using such a product. Especially on a homestead scale, it would be great to be able to use the biomass as mulch (etc.). I'm not familiar with cheatgrass, but I can offer some thoughts on invasive plant removal generally:

- Most of the invasives I've worked with regrow from roots, so if this device were to be effective against perennial plants, it would need to able to pull and kill the roots. I suppose this wouldn't a problem for annuals if you get them at the right time of year. Something to consider depending on what you want the scope of this device to be.
- Some invasives can also regrow from very small fragments (looking at you, knotweed), so chopping/grinding actually does more to spread the plant than to get rid of it. Again, not a problem for a lot of plants, so consider the scope of application.
- Removing invasive plants manually can be quite exhausting. If a device could make the task physically less demanding, that would be a huge benefit. In this case, that might look like incorporating a motor, or, if driven by hand, having large mechanical advantage
- I've also worked with some aquatic invasives (e.g., Phragmites, arundo). Again, a question of the scope of application, but being able to operate the device on wet ground/shallow water could open it up to use on these plants.

Hi Hans thank you for asking! I hope to be able to make the grinders strong enough to completely crush the plants into a biomass. In order to do this I hope to incorporate a hammer mill grinder technique into my grinder. Moreover I was also thinking about disc mills, grinding mill and disc mills.

hans muster wrote:Interesting, and how do you imagine this could kill seeds?

Thank you for your comment Ian! I believe your insight on perennial plants is very useful. For my machine It would be ideal to have already pulled out the plants so that you may just toss the insavie species into the grinder so that any remains that could regrow get crushed. In your opinion do you believe my machine should have some sort of feature that aids in pulling out the plants from their roots? Moreover I hope to incorporate an electric motor that is run by solar power so that the machine can run with a low footprint. As for the small fragments that may get left behind from crushing the invasive species I hope to be able to catch them in a box under the grinders in my machine. For wet ground and shallow water I hope to brainstorm more on this idea to figure out the most effective method on how to deal with aquatic invasives.

Ian Påf wrote:As someone who has spent perhaps hundreds of hours removing invasive plants manually, I would absolutely consider using such a product. Especially on a homestead scale, it would be great to be able to use the biomass as mulch (etc.). I'm not familiar with cheatgrass, but I can offer some thoughts on invasive plant removal generally:

- Most of the invasives I've worked with regrow from roots, so if this device were to be effective against perennial plants, it would need to able to pull and kill the roots. I suppose this wouldn't a problem for annuals if you get them at the right time of year. Something to consider depending on what you want the scope of this device to be.
- Some invasives can also regrow from very small fragments (looking at you, knotweed), so chopping/grinding actually does more to spread the plant than to get rid of it. Again, not a problem for a lot of plants, so consider the scope of application.
- Removing invasive plants manually can be quite exhausting. If a device could make the task physically less demanding, that would be a huge benefit. In this case, that might look like incorporating a motor, or, if driven by hand, having large mechanical advantage
- I've also worked with some aquatic invasives (e.g., Phragmites, arundo). Again, a question of the scope of application, but being able to operate the device on wet ground/shallow water could open it up to use on these plants.

Thank you for mentioning this Phil! I hope to be able to maximise biomass so that it may be used in other applications such as biofuel, electricity generation, biogas and much more. Who knows maybe this same exact biomass may be able to power my machine!

Phil Stevens wrote:I reckon the time to use it is before the seeds are viable. The flowering point is a good time to swoop in and annihilate plants that you don't want, because they've just put much of their energy into reproduction. You tend to maximise biomass this way, too, as lots of annual species start to drop their leaves after flowering.

Juan Ramirez wrote:For my machine It would be ideal to have already pulled out the plants so that you may just toss the insavie species into the grinder so that any remains that could regrow get crushed. In your opinion do you believe my machine should have some sort of feature that aids in pulling out the plants from their roots?

I misunderstood, my bad! I think pulling roots might be too big of a feature to add, at least for the time being! Still worth considering that if you are grinding roots, there may be small rocks and tough roots to deal with.