From Paddy.Doherty@tesco.net Mon Dec 6 19:36:42 1999 Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 16:23:20 -0000 From: Paddy Doherty To: Sanet-mg-digest Subject: Composting slurry [ The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set. ] [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ] [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ] Dear Sanet users, I had the very good fortune to attend a "Manure Management Evening", in Newcastle Emlyn last Wednesday. Sponsored by the Cambrian Organic Group, it was one of a series of events designed to encourage organic farming in Wales. The program mimicked similar events in other venues all over the world. A representative of the Environmental Regulator spoke about legislation, mostly, and a person from a research station and another from an advisory service spoke briefly about nitrate cycling and manure handling, respectively. All three suggested the question period would provide more information than their talks. In the question period the issue of liquid manure slurries and what is the best method of dealing with them, kept coming up. I was surprised to see how closely this problem parallels what we have been trying to deal with in British Columbia now that organic milk production is finally coming on stream. In B.C. there are Certification Committees which are right now trying to make recommendations to dairy farmers about what is actually "organic practice" and what is practicable and how to reconcile the two. The upshot of the question period was an absence of information on this subject. It was generally agreed that a straw-based bedding system was preferred; but this provides little help for farmers in conversion (or interested in conversion) who have slurry systems already in place. Reference was made to Nic Lampkin's book, "Organic Farming", in which he details the benefits of slurry agitation and aeration. The talk around the room was that aerating your slurry would send far too much ammonia into the atmosphere, thereby losing nitrogen and polluting the air. I know when I turn my compost piles with my front-end-loader, there is lots of ammonia lost to the air. I just consider it part of the process. My questions to Sanet. Can a liquid manure slurry be made to compost? Can slurry be transformed into a stable (or more stable) product so that there is not the enormous ammonia escape associated with spreading it? What about injecting it? (I've heard anecdotal evidence that this is hard on soil fauna) I know there are organic dairy farms in the Midwestern States and Ontario and Quebec with much more experience dealing with this problem than we have had. What do you do? thanks, Paddy Doherty President, Certified Organic Associations of B.C. To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail From CAVM@aol.com Mon Dec 6 19:37:15 1999 Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 19:01:31 EST From: CAVM@aol.com To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu Subject: Re: wet dairy manure In a message dated 12/6/1999 5:48:47 PM Central Standard Time, owner-sanet-mg-digest@ces.ncsu.edu writes: > > My questions to Sanet. Can a liquid manure slurry be made to compost? > Can slurry be transformed into a stable (or more stable) product so > that there is not the enormous ammonia escape associated with > spreading it? What about injecting it? (I've heard anecdotal evidence > that this is hard on soil fauna) > Liquid manure can be handled in various ways. It can be injected into the soil or surface applied by spraying. It can have the solids separated out and the water portion used as above or recirculated through the barn as wash. Given the right circumstances it could be cleaned enough to make it potable, if you chose. The solid portion, after separation, can be composted, dried for bedding, or land applied as is. If we can help in your endeavors, please do not hesitate to call us. We have other thoughts on the uses of the wet manure including hydroponics and evaporation ponds of duckweed, for example. It can even be used to generate heat and energy. Regards, Cornelius A. Van Milligen Kentucky Enrichment Inc. CAVM@AOL.com To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command "unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest". To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command "subscribe sanet-mg-digest". All messages to sanet-mg are archived at: http://www.sare.org/san/htdocs/hypermail