Farm Hack Talk

I am interested in putting together fire alarm systems for two of my barns where I house livestock. Ideally I could set something up that would sound an alarm inside my house to alert me to the danger of a fire. I found fire alarms set up with relays, but they are quite expensive ($70/unit not including shipping). Standard fire alarms are pretty cheap. Any ideas on how to retrofit several to sound a remote alarm?

Thanks.

George

Hi all, I'm spreading the word about a new farmer-to-farmer networking and information-sharing platform called FarmsReach (farmsreach.com). It's great for growers of all experience levels, and was essentially designed by CA farmers and several nonprofits that serve the farming community.

There are a lot of features I think you'd find useful:

There's a new addition on the login page. A google and facebook button.

If a previously unregistered user clicks these buttons it will create a new FarmHack.net account tied to their Facebook or Google account. For those of use that have existing FarmHack.net accounts, I wrote a how-to on linking your Google or Facebook account to your existing FarmHack.net profile.

Hi Hackers, I am new to this community and relatively new to farming itself. This is our second year of production and its already time to start planting onions up here in Quebec. We have decided to start the Alliums indoors for the first month and move them out to the greenhouse at the beginning of April. We didn't feel that it was worth it to heat the greenhouse yet, when overnight temps are still regularly below 0. So as we did last year, we have moved a few greenhouse tables inside and set up 400 watt sodium halide lights above them. This worked pretty well last year.

Hey guys, I would love to have a farm hack event in wisconsin, maybe madison. It could be a one day event where we had professionals from the Biological Systems Engineering department, farmers, engineers, or others to talk about how to weld, how to use different tools, what type of tools can be made, what resources are out there for farm hackers, safety when hacking, etc. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Thanks, Jesse

I'm looking for some assistance hacking a soybean roaster, or locating someone who will custom roast near Johnson County, IA.

As a small-scale poultry producer, as much as I'd like to buy organic feed, at this time it's out of my price range and I'm seeing other poultry producers in my area in a similar position.

I've managed to track down some conventional non-GMO sources for corn, soy, alfalfa, and oats, and secured access to a grinder and mixer. The challenge now is roasting the non-GMO soybeans.

...Anyone tried hacking a roaster?

Has anyone considered or seen a self-propelled wheel hoe or potential bcs attachment that could undercut weeds in pathways? We use the tiller attachment for all of our path cultivation but it is slow and mean. Pushing a wheel hoe over 20 acres of bed paths sounds pretty brutal but a BCS attachment could be pretty nifty. Any thoughts or experience with self propelled wheel hoes out there?

This post is track the kick off a tool page that will be able to use the wiki/forum structure of FarmHack to post the digitized version of a four volume set of a farm encyclopedia titled "encyclopedia of practical farming" It was completed in 1928 and is very comprehensive, but obviously would benefit from a complete review and update. The tool wiki will work for the table of contents but if each article were a separate wiki - they would not have the associated forums attached, so we may want to add the option to have forums attached to non-tool wiki substructure.

The Farming Institute (www.thefarminginstitute.com) is a unique, fast track, 11 week farming immersion program taking place on two vegetable farms using organic practices in Eastern Iowa. It is designed to equip emerging farmers of all ages, such as college students, recent graduates or others wanting to fulfill a dream. The program includes a mixture of hands on and classroom experience. During the program, students will complete a business plan for their future farm and learn about the land, the business of farming and the farming process.

It could be a good opportunity to meet up and have some discussions in person :).