They Built Their Own Compost Turner

They Built Their Own Compost Turner FERTILIZER APPLICATION Fertilizer Application (58f) 22-3-38 "We built it seven years ago and have been working to improve it ever since," says Lou Kozma about the pull-type compost turner he and John Hirzel designed and built. Hirzel Farms, Luckey, Ohio, has been composting cannery food waste and manure from nearby farms for 12 years. Early-on, they decided they needed a way to efficiently turn piles but couldn't justify the expense of a big self-propelled unit, Kozma says. "John saw a commercial pull-type unit at a show and decided we could build one of our own," he says. The men built a 15-ft. A-frame for the machine out of heavy-duty 4 by 8-in. tubing. Then they built a 15-in. dia., 10-ft. wide drum out of heavy-gauge 1/2-in. thick steel pipe and fitted it with 10-in. long teeth arranged in rows in a helical pattern. The windrow turner rides on a steerable axle off an old potato harvester. It's fitted with a right angle gearbox to transfer power from the tractor pto to the drum. It takes a 110 to 140 hp tractor to power it. "The hardest part of the project was the gearbox," Kozma notes. "Because of the right angle design, there's a lot of stress on the gearbox and we've replaced it several times. They aren't cheap, either, at $600 apiece from a local pto parts supplier. We're still tinkering with that part of the design. "We produce 3,000 to 4,000 tons of compost a year for use on 700 acres of organic grain and vegetable crops. We use the ma-chine every day, May through November, to turn the 10-ft. windrows that we make in a 2-acre clay-bottom pad. It's worked out fairly well for us." Out-of-pocket expense was about $10,000. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Hirzel Farms, 20790 Bradner Rd., Luckey, Ohio 43443 (ph 419 837-2710).

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