MANURE

Composting is a microbial-driven process. Like other living creatures, microbes need the right environment to survive and thrive. For successful composting, it is necessary to provide nutritious microbial “food”, suitable moisture, pH, temperature and oxygen.

Nutrient removal systems for manure management have been around the dairy industry for more than 10 years, yet very few dairies in Canada are currently utilizing these systems.

Two Wisconsin farm families are grieving the loss of two young men, one a 29-year-old farmer from Amherst, the other a 16-year-old boy from Owen.

It’s estimated that cows, along with the process of milking, produce 20 gallons of manure and 10 gallons of water per cow per day.

With the objective to develop novel waste-to-resource technologies capable of converting organic wastes into value-added fuel and chemical products, Dana Kirk, Ph.D., P.E. in biosystems and agricultural engineering at Michigan State University, had his work cut out for him.

In partial response to the energy crisis in the early 1970s, anaerobic digesters were installed at nearly 200 dairy farms across the U.S., only for the vast majority of these systems to shut down or fail after just a few years of operation.