Bend down, pick up a root, toss it in a pile, repeat for hours.
Bill Janzen knew there had to be a better way to clear roots from a newly broken field.
In 1984 he invented a root piler, which looks a bit like a round baler that scoops up roots and sifts them from the dirt.
Interest in the machine has been revived since a plan was unveiled to sell and clear more than 800 quarters of land in Mackenzie County over the next few years.
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Janzen’s friend, Jake Driedger, asked him this past winter to dust off his original plans, make a few modifications and help oversee the building of two root pilers and three root pickers in Driedger’s farm shop.
“When you’re working by hand, there is incentive to improve things,” said Driedger, who picked acres of roots and dreamed up ways to make life easier.
Welders are busy in farm and fabrication shops around La Crete, manufacturing breaking plows, root pilers, root pickers and the other heavy equipment needed to clear land of trees.
“There’s going to be a demand for this,” said Janzen, who spent the winter drawing up plans and making modifications to the root piler.
The custom land clearing business has already picked up, said John Bergen, who paused for a few minutes to let the dust settle on his root picker.
“I could have used four pickers last year,” said Bergen, who now has a long list of people wanting to hire him to help clear their land.
“I’ll be busy for the next 20 years.” William Schmidt of Schmidt Welding Repair said the demand for land clearing equipment means he can spend his days welding at a shop three kilometres from home and not hours away from La Crete.
“This is a real good deal. There’s lots of work,” said Schmidt, whose goal is to build five to 10 root pickers over the summer.
“A lot of people wanted to clear land this spring but couldn’t. There sure will be more next spring.”
Simon Neudorf, who does custom land clearing at La Crete., expects to have as much work as he can handle.
“I will be busy the next 15 years clearing land, then farming it. This is a long-term investment.”
Neudorf bought six quarters of land for an average $48,000 a quarter. He estimates it will costs $350 to $400 an acre to get the land from trees to seedbed.
