![]() ![]() Or they struggle with inadequate lagoon-holding capacities that threaten to spill over, especially during rainy weather. Some dairy farmers don’t have enough land to safely spread their manure, Modderman says. ![]() Concentrating the good stuffīut too much of a good thing can also be an issue. ![]() That has many positive soil-building benefits, according to the USDA’s Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning Community, including improving soil structure, decreasing erosion and crop stress, and increasing nutrient retention and water infiltration. Traditionally, dairy farmers contain manure in a lagoon before spreading it on nearby fields, Modderman says. “With dairy farmers milking two times a day,” she says, “manure can be an afterthought.” in 2019, that’s roughly 746 million gallons a day.Ĭhryseis Modderman, a member of the Manure Nutrient Management team at the University of Minnesota Extension office, says it can be hard to keep up with manure management. And dairy farmers can certainly use all the help they can get.Ī single, mature lactating cow produces around 80 pounds of manure per day, according to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Animal Manure Management brief. With an estimated 9.3 million dairy cows in the U.S. “We’re just concentrating it and giving it back to them in a way that is cost-effective for them to use,” he says. Making manure management affordableĭigesters that turn manure and other waste into biogas are prohibitively expensive for smaller dairies Levine argues his filtration-first strategy helps resolve that issue, resulting in even more manure in one place. Or, he adds, stop by the company’s demonstration farm in Wisconsin and “take a sip.” But those aren’t the only benefits.ĭigested Organics wants to help farmers create new income streams. The water can be discharged safely into nearby watersheds or reused for cow drinking water, says Levine. ![]() This creates two more products: a second fertilizer rich in ammonia, nitrogen and potassium, and clean, drinking-quality water. Their second step is a”two-step reverse osmosis” technique that pulls the water out of the “tea water” solution produced in the first filtration round, according to Levine. Meanwhile, the concentrate collected in the tubes produces a thick, sludge-like material that Levine says can be used as an organic fertilizer suitable for land application, composting or recycling to bio-digesters. Levine says the “tea” or “UF (ultra-filtered) permeate” concentrates 95 percent of the phosphorus, all the suspended solids and pathogens into 25 percent of the manure volume.ĭigested Organics recommends using the permeate for irrigation because it won’t clog nozzles and contains no pathogens. The filtration process starts by running raw manure through stainless steel infiltration tubes. Water and salts pass through while solids and pathogens stay in the tubes. Owner of Detroit-based Digested Organics and armed with a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, Levine says his two-step filtration solution “transforms manure” into its reusable, planet-friendly parts, including concentrated fertilizers, waste appropriate for biogas digesters and even clean, safe water. The contest - hosted by The Yield Lab Institute, a global AgTech think tank and offshoot of The Yield Lab, a global accelerator supporting early-stage agricultural companies - was designed to discover, expedite and scale economically and environmentally-superior waste management practices. To wit, Bobby Levine just won $50,000 for his unique filtration system, beating seven other manure-focused start-ups in a 12-month long, international Manure Challenge. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |