Modern solutions for problems as old as time. It might be another epic year for tumbleweeds, if not this year then next year for sure. I need a tumbleweed mulcher. Problem is tumbleweeds are big. Up to 1 meter in diameter. A normal wood chipper doesn't do anything. So I'm thinking make something that would be found in a B rate horror movie, because that's always a great idea. Get a sealed reversible 4 pole 56 frame motor and attach a lawn mower blade to it. Make 1/8 inch shatter shield to prevent death and mutilation. I have broken blades at full throttle on my riding lawn mower and a 4 pole motor would run significantly slower than that. A 1/8 inch shatter shield would be many times thicker than the deck of a riding lawnmower. Vertical standing too tall to fall into it or stick your arm in it. Just throw a tumbleweed in the top and this technological terror it sucks them in, chops them up and spits out much smaller tumbleweed bits out the bottom where they can be collected, stored and burned for heat later on.
I get tumble weeds every couple years, I just blow them up against the fence and drive over them with the Caterpillar 5 ton, then come back with the blade and push into a pile and from there can scoop them up and shove them into the chipper, thorne's and all!
Problem is when you get a bunch of them together is they burn too easily. The best thing I have seen done with them is some ranchers will take a old harvester convert it to pull in, grind up and spit out tumbleweeds. But you're talking like a $40,000 broke obsolete machine with tens of thousands of dollars worth of mods and repairs. If they followed it with a grain truck they would have a grain truck full of fuel after not too long.
