Farm waste disposal and on-farm fertilizer production

Composting for the farm's own land requires little more than a drained pad, a windrow and a loader. Selling a product requires screening to a defined grade, moisture control, packaging and — increasingly — documentation. The decision point is whether the value added per tonne covers the extra labour and equipment, which depends on the local market within your transport radius.

A practical intermediate step, which many farms choose, is to compost and screen for bulk sale to neighbours and nurseries, and to install a bagging line only once a repeat retail customer exists. The small-scale plant page sets out what that configuration looks like.

Notes from our own records on farm waste disposal solutions and on-farm fertilizer production.

Farm waste refers to animal waste from dairy, pig or poultry farm and waste from vegetable and fruit farm. The animal waste contains much organic matters and nutrient elements, which decides its value in making organic fertilizer. Meanwhile, waste from vegetable and fruit farm include small tree branches, discarded vegetables and fruits, which can also be used for making compost. Therefore, composting is a good method for farm waste disposal. On the one hand, you can use composted farm waste as fertilizer on you farm. On the other hand, if your farm can produce large scale waste, you can make commercial organic fertilizer, and you can sell them to surrounding area.

Why should we need to dispose organic waste on the farm in time? It is important for both animal farm and vegetable farm to deal with waste in time. Because the farm waste not only occupies much space, but also may produce odor and cause pollution. In order to fully utilize farm waste, we think, composting will be your best choice. For one thing, pathogens, seeds and eggs will be killed during composting, which can guarantee the harmlessness of farm waste. For the other thing, microorganisms will convert organic matter into soil-like substance-humus, which can provides nutrients to soil and plants.

What solution can YUSHUNXIN provide for easily dealing with farm waste? As mentioned above, it is necessary to regularly manage farm waste, which is good for the health of your livestock, poultry, crop and land. But what solutions are suitable and efficient? YUSHUNXIN will provide you two methods below.

• Composting It is a natural aerobic process, which can speed the decompose of organic matter. There are three types composting ways, including windrows, grooves and automatic composting equipment.

Windrows: You can pile farm waste up in long rows, whose height, weight and width depends on the space area and machinery. These windrows has no other requirement on space, besides concrete ground and shelter. In addition, if you have large scale farm waste to dispose, you can adopt windrow composting equipment. And the width of compost pile is decided by model of composting equipment.

Grooves: This composting method requires you to build fermentation grooves. Each of groove is rectangular, which has three walls. These grooves have better effect of insulation. In addition, it can accommodate more farm waste than windrows.

• Automatic composting equipment: It can automatically control composting period and finish composting. What’s more, it is time-saving and space-saving.

Vermicomposting Unlike composting, vermicomposting utilizes earthworms to digest farm waste and convert it into valuable vermicompost. Earthworms eat farm waste, and convert nutrients (N, P, K and Ca) in organic waste to most soluble and available matters for plants. Take one of our Indian customers as an example, the raw material they adopt for vermicomposting is cattle manure. The put cattle manure and earthworms together and cover them with straw. Due to the special constitution of earthworms, the vermicompost is a kind of valuable and high-quality organic fertilizer.

How to make a reasonable farm waste management plan Besides farm waste, machinery, time, space, personnel and economic resources also affect the farm waste disposal plan. Though composting is a cost-effective method for farm waste disposal, and is easy to implement, you should take your actual conditions into consideration before making plan.

Consider raw materials for composting You should count the farm waste volume of every month that you have, so as decide the space and composting methods or machinery to adopt. Generally speaking, if you want to make high-quality organic fertilizer, the volume of animal manure should be over 60%, which can provide a large portion of organic matters. And the other auxiliary organic waste can be straw, crushed tree branches and discarded fruit and vegetables.

Select site and composting method If you have larger space, you can adopt windrows to compost organic waste. On the contrary, you can adopt fermentation grooves and automatic composting equipment. In addition, you also can adopt some machines for farm waste disposal, so as to accelerate composting. What’s more, the site for composting should stay away from water sources and residential area.

Making farm waste compost and application During farm waste composting, you should regularly turn and stir compost pile, so as to adjust water content, oxygen content and temperature. For windrows and fermentation grooves, the composting period may last for 20-30 days with the help of composting equipment. And the automatic composting equipment can shorten composting time to 7-10 days. If you want to use composted farm waste to your own farm, the farm waste disposal is finished after composting. On the other hand, yvou need to further process composted farm waste, if you want to sell it to nearby users.

YUSHUNXIN tells you how to make a farm compost system In terms of building farm compost system, you should consider the following procedures. Farm waste collection→mixing raw materials→turning compost pile→finish composting→crush farm waste compost→screening→ packaging. The first two steps belong to preparation of composting. In order to save cost, you can arrange fermentation space nearby raw material source. One point needs your special attention, the water content of farm waste for composting, and the normal value is 50%-60%. Besides farm manure, you can add some low-moisture bulking agents, such as sawdust, straw, peat, peanut shell, rice hull and so on. In this way, you can adjust C/N ratio and water content of compost pile. Turning compost pile is to release heat produce by microorganism activity and increase oxygen content. The last three steps are to produce commercial farm waste fertilizer. They are used for manufacturing bagged organic fertilizer.

YUSHUNXIN farm waste disposal equipment for making farm waste fertilizer in a short time Self-propelled compost turner for farm waste windrows: It adopts four wheels, which is easy for operation (one person is enough). The turning apparatus will stir farm waste evenly and crush potential caking. During turning, heat produced by microorganism will be released and the air will enter compost pile, so as to create favorable conditions for composting. Groove type compost turner for farm waste grooves: This kind of compost turner moves on the two paralleled walls of the fermentation groove. The stirring shaft with blades can turn the food waste thoroughly. You can control the groove type compost turner by control cabinet. Automatic composting equipment: YUSHUNXIN automatic composting equipment has stirring apparatus, air supply system, temperature sensor, elevator bucket for feeding farm waste and deodorization device. Therefore, it can automatically finish composting in 7 to 10 days after you place mixed materials in it.

Auxiliary farm waste disposal machines Farm manure dewatering machine: As we all know, manure from pig, horse and cow contains a lot of water. And the extra water will inhibit ventilation and the rise of temperature, which may lead to the failure of composting. Therefore, we should separate water from farm manure. YUSHUNXIN solid liquid separator machine has dewatering function, and the dewatering degree is adjustable. And you can use the water from farm manure for producing biogas, which can improve the utilization of waste. Straw crusher: You can add tree branches, straw and peanut shell into compost pile, so as to adjust C/N ration and ventilation of compost pile. However, too large material will influence the heating up of compost pile. So, you need to make them into small pieces. YUSHUNXIN straw crusher is used for deal with these materials, and you can use crushed materials to compost pile directly.

YUSHUNXIN machines for you to make commercial organic fertilizer from farm waste As mentioned in the fourth part, crushing, screening and packaging are important steps for making commercial organic fertilizer from farm waste. It is also a cost-effective method for farm waste disposal. Commercial organic fertilizer has higher requirements on farm waste compost. Therefore, you should use the following machines: Farm waste compost crushing machine: In order to make fine organic fertilizer, you can adopt crushing machine to eliminate potential caking in composted farm waste. YUSHUNXIN vertical crusher has higher crushing efficiency and output. Screening machine for farm waste compost: After crushing, belt conveyor will send compost to screening machine. The rotary screen machine in YUSHUNXIN has different screening levels. And you can set suitable screening level according to your actual requirements. Farm waste fertilizer bagging machine: YUSHUNXIN fertilizer bagging machine can finish feeding, filling, sealing and packaging with one or two persons. It can make 25kg or 50kg bagged organic fertilizer.