Harvest Technology Limited Medicinal Herbs

REGINA - Jan 5/04 - SNS -- Harvest technology has been a major limiting factor in development of a medicinal herb industry in Saskatchewan, but a harvesting unit developed by Ben-Don Innovations Inc. (BDI) of Saskatoon could help solve the problem.

Ben Voss says the successful production of medicinal plants is highly dependent on the ability to harvest and prepare the product according to the desires of the end market. He says volume, throughput, moisture content and size of product are some of the important considerations, so new harvesting equipment technology is only one key to enabling large-scale medicinal herb production.

"In order for field scale production to be cost-effective and viable, post-harvest cleaning and processing are also necessary. Contamination by leaves, stems, weeds or other material must be removed, cut or separated from the desired product, in order to secure higher prices and increase the likelihood of production success in the future," says Voss.

The three-year project undertaken by BDI, therefore, researched, developed, designed, built, tested and reported on the machines needed to harvest and process flowering medicinal plants in Saskatchewan, specifically chamomile, St. John's wort, calendula and red clover. Based on producer interest and market demand, however, chamomile and red clover became the primary focus. The project was supported by the Agriculture Development Fund (ADF.)

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