Press Related to L&M Compost

New Solutions for Old Manure Problems

At agricultural experiment stations in Texas and Indiana, systems and technologies for managing manure are moving from the laboratory to land applications. Don Cawthon, head of the Agricultural Science Department at Texas A&M-Commerce, has developed an in-vessel composter with a rotating tank that gives the operator continuous control over moisture, porosity, temperature and oxygen. Cawthon and a manufacturing firm, BW Organics of Sulpher Springs, Texas, have used their system for animal manures and mortalities plus other feedstocks.

Recently, the EPA awarded his project an implementation/demonstration grant allowing placement of in-vessel composters on dairy and poultry farms. An eight-by-24 foot composter is operating on a 400-cow diary in northeast Texas, handling approximately 25 cubic yards (cy) per batch. A second EPA grant will place a six-by-16 foot composter on a poultry/beef farm to process manure and mortalities. "Facilities can reach as high as five percent (of production)," he explains. "By composting, I'm confident we'll find an alternative to static bin composting or incinerating."

Cawthon and Bernie Beers, president of BW Organics, report that marketing the units has been quite slow. "I feel that we're right on the edge of something big, but we've had some frustrating times. We'll go to demonstrations and everyone seems to be excited about the units, but they're slow to buy them."

So far, 14 of the units have been sold nationwide. One went to a farm in Iowa to process hog manure with ground corn stalks as a bulking agent. Another was sold to a dairy in Green Bay, Wisconsin to handle its residuals.

--from BioCycle, Journal of Composting & Recycling, Vol. 29, No. 12, December 1998, reprinted with permission.