Yes, I will start out small. Probably start with converting old cooking oil at first.

These are long term plans for me. Who knows where oil prices will be in 10-20years. All I know is I've had it with big oil and OPEC.

In this pic you can see I'm surrounded by farmland. The red hatched area of my land was farmed as recently as 5-10 years ago, so clearing that would not be too bad. It works out to be about 12 acres.


usera.imagecave.com/whitedwarf4/Biodiesel/FarmLand-01.JPG

My brother and I spoke to an avid CAT collector about undercarriage wear when Farming. He said that undercarriages last longer typically in farming because its dirt not sand that will grind away or mud that could seep into seals and bearings. He said that on a working dozer machine you are liable to find more UC wear than on a no blade farm tractor.
Besides, if an old D4 will pull five 14" plows, a D6 would make short work of 12 acres!

Any farmers out there know where I can buy rapeseed seed?

I may have missed my window for the spring planting, but I'd like to try a bit of the winter stuff...

If you are still getting heavy frosts and snow flurries, then you haven't missed the window of opportunity!

Nope, it's been relatively warn here now for 5 weeks...

"ETD66SS" wrote:

Any farmers out there know where I can buy rapeseed seed?

I may have missed my window for the spring planting, but I'd like to try a bit of the winter stuff...

You should be able to get it through your local feed and seed dealers. Might want do a bit of web searching for info. It's probably not too late if you have plowed ground and a drill handy.

I found a place that has seed. I don't have a drill handy however.

This experiment might have to wait until fall...

This thread has really got me thinking.

I think I could grow cannola here. I wonder if a guy could set up some of that extrusion equpment on a barnyard basis, like run it with a belt pulley. Produce cow feed and oil for biodiesel, sounds good to me. I wonder how much oil you could get from a ton of seed.

Too bad this didn't come up 15 years ago when I still had a working combine and nothing was worth growing.

Tom

Have you seen the info on growing algae for the production of biodiesel?

I'm hearing about a lot of interest in using a mixture of used crank oil like you drain from your car mixed with diesel in about a 1 part diesel to 2 part motor oil combo. Saw this in a farm magazine and there are several kits out there to do it. Most of the kit is really just a series of a couple filters to ensure you have any metal or other impurities removed from the motor oil. Haven't tried it yet, but the testimonials say big diesels love it.