VOTE: New Hammer Mill Naming Finalists

We are in the final stage of voting for a name for our new hammer mill in the City of Madison Engineering Division!

 Vote for your favorite finalist.  

Voting closes 4 p.m., Nov. 12, 2026. The winner will be announced via blog! 

Our Conservation Crew has acquired a new machine to help with native seed processing. This gorgeous hunk of metal is a hammer mill. While new to us, this hammer mill had a history of being used for agricultural purposes like grinding and milling or even glass crushing and was recently refurbished by the seller.   Modern day restoration ecologists regularly repurpose hammer mills to process a wide variety of native seeds. After collection and drying, the plant material gets fed into the hammer mill, where rapidly rotating metal hammers break the seeds free of their hulls and other plant material (chaff). This material can then be sifted to separate the chaff from the seed, allowing for improved seed-to-soil contact as well as assemblage and sowing of custom seed mixes.  

Learn more about what we do with the Hammer Mill in Engineering.