Memberships & Fees

BCS Equipment is available to rent by KLAS members in good standing who have paid their annual KLAS membership fees ($25) and the annual BCS Tractor Maintenance Fee ($30). Equipment will not be available to book until membership payments and fees have been received and accounted.

BCS Tractor

The power, versatility, manoeuvrability, and reliability of the BCS walking tractor have made it a small plot standby in Europe for decades. It is also well-suited to the “nook-and-cranny” farming life in the Kootenays. It is a serious tool, and our tool guardians are on guard to ensure renters know how to operate it and what’s important in the maintenance checklist before you take it home.

Locations – Creston, Kaslo, Krestova

BCS Tiller

The BCS tiller is no garden-variety rototiller. It has much more power and is much less prone to damage in rocky areas. A wedge-shaped “middlebuster” breaks out the strip under the gearbox. The tiller is particularly useful for regular shallow tillage to keep grass at bay and set the ground for seeds. It’s also great to incorporate cover crops, but it’s best to use a flail mower first or else long, fibrous plant material will wrap on the tine shaft. With 290 rpm tine speed and up to 8″ working depth, care has to be taken not to over-pulverise the soil. We recommend the rotary plow for primary tillage, and the tiller for shallow weed control and bed-prep between crops.

Locations – Creston, Kaslo, Krestova

BCS Power Harrow

The power harrow is a very different kind of tiller. The action of the tiller is to roll into the earth, horizontally, while the action of the power harrow is vertical, like stirring a pot. The advantage is much less damage to soil structure, and it doesn’t produce a hardpan layer as tillers can if over-used. Stirring depth is easily adjusted, and a roller on the back leaves a perfect seed bed for sowing

Locations – Creston, Krestova , Kaslo

BCS Rotary Plow

We highly recommend the use of the rotary plow attachment to dig shallow swales, build raised beds to 12″ depth, and as the first plowing on an old field to be turned into a garden or over to crops. It works with an auger-like plow to slice the earth below and flip it over, resulting in minimum compaction and lots of aeration, with sod upside down.

Locations – Creston, Kaslo, Krestova

BCS Flail Mower

The flail mower is a heavy duty mower, a “chipper-shredder on wheels,” that quickly reduces standing plants to mulch. A horizontal drum has swinging blades that “flail” out by centrifugal force to pulverize the cover crop, brush, or whatever you’re bringing down. The taller and denser the material, the slower you have to go because the mower has to grind up all that material, but nothing beats a flail mower to quickly incorporate carbon into the soil surface. The rear baffle can be removed to eject material without grinding it up so much, allowing the mower to move faster and handle coarser plants, effectively working as a brush mower.

Locations – Creston, Krestova

BCS Seeder/Spreader

To sow large areas densely, such as lawns or cover crops, or to spread granular amendments evenly across large areas quickly, the seeder-spreader is an excellent and versatile tool. An expanded-mesh roller in the rear presses the seed or fertilizer into the soil while driving the agitator shaft in the hopper. The holes are fully adjustable for a wide variety of seed or material sizes—it even does well with buckwheat’s irregular seeds. You can close the shutter to transport without dropping seed.

Locations – Krestova

BCS Brush Mower

If you’ve got thick brush (hardwood to 1.5″, softwood to 2″) then the brush mower will cut it down. It does not chop it up like the flail mower but chops and drops, so it can handle thicker brush more quickly.

Locations – Krestova

BCS Chipper/Shredder

The chipper-shredder is useful for small batches of shredding and small chipping jobs, handling branches up to 2.5″ in diameter. The hammermill-style shredding chamber and the flywheel chipper dispense underneath the machine, directly onto the ground. By moving the tractor and chipper periodically, an area can be covered with mulch easily.

Locations – Creston

KLAS Hay Package

We know the stresses of creating hay and silage. Take advantage of the bundle package to get your hay off the field. $200/session (3-4 day rental) with the BCS Tractor, Disk Mower, Hay Tedder, Hay Baler and/or Silage Wrapper.

Locations – Krestova

BCS Disk Mower

The disc mower is specifically used to cut hay, with flails on large circular discs cutting the hay and leaving it in a windrow behind the tractor

Locations – Krestova

BCS Hay Tedder

The next step in making hay is to rake or “ted” the hay, turning it over and spreading it out as needed to dry it out. You want to handle drying hay gently, and that’s what this octopus of an implement, the hay tedder is specifically designed for. Once the hay is dry, a quick trip down the rows with the tedder can pile the hay in rows that are just the right height and width for the hay baler.

Locations – Krestova

BCS Hay Baler

The hay baler has two circular rakes to guide the windrow of dried hay into its rolling mechanisms that pull and roll hay into a round bale. When the baler is full—a signal lets you know—you stop the baler and pull a switch to engage the wrapper to tie the bale up in netting. The hood is cracked open and out rolls a 40 or 50 pound bale of hay. The hood is closed and the baling continues down the row.

Locations – Krestova

BCS Silage Wrapper

The final stage in the game comes if you want to make silage—or perhaps you’d like to get something better from wet hay you were forced to bale too soon! The silage wrapper is matched to the baler so the same round bales can be quickly wrapped in silage plastic to ferment for winter feed.

Locations – Krestova