Mower attatchments

[Crabapple Farm]

I was just flipping through Lynn’s “Haying with Horses” while thinking about Rob’s plywood mower attatchment for reaping (see his response to David’s equipment wanted thread), and noticed a whole section on mower attatchments that people could get for harvesting all sorts of things other than grass (in chapter 9).
We’ve been playing around with diversifying our crops to include various seeds – peas, beans, grains, etc. So far at our scale we’re just havesting by hand or, for the grains, with a cradle scythe. It works fine at our scale, but doesn’t allow us to increase much. I’m sort of intimidated by the thoughts of getting a binder, making it work, and keeping it working. And I don’t really envision expanding to the point where having a binder would be fully justified (they take up a heck of barn storage space, among other “costs”).
So, I’d be real interested in hearing if anyone else out there has played around with mower attatchments for harvesting crops other than hay. And if so how they worked. The pictures in the books all look terribly clever, but what’s the reality on the ground?
Also, for other people growing seed / grain crops, how are you harvesting and how happy are you with your system?
-Tevis

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