Manure “Cooker” Eliminated Lagoons

Manure “Cooker” Eliminated Lagoons MANURE HANDLING Equipment The owners of a 35 000-cow dairy operation say a manure-processing system they’ve been using on their farm is the ultimate “odorless” solution to handling huge quantities of manure “The Varcor system we’re using will revolutionize animal agriculture for the better ” says Donald De Jong Natural Prairie Dairy The odor-suppressing Varcor Technology captures nitrogen that would normally be released into the air sterilizes weed seeds reduces manure handling and eliminates run-off from spreading raw manure The system converts manure into clean water and rich organic fertilizer in both a powder form of NPK and as liquid nitrogen De Jong with his wife Cheri produce organic milk and other dairy products at their farms in Texas and Indiana Varcor Technology is in use at both locations Before installing the Varcor system the De Jongs stored dairy waste in open lagoons with an estimated nitrogen loss of 80 to 90 percent through volatilization Today the manure is vacuumed up daily and processed The process separates sand from the slurry and brings the waste components to near boiling Liquid fractions are evaporated off Remaining solids are spread on a large disk to dry then scraped off and collected The result is a highly concentrated NPK fertilizer Water and ammonia are evaporated off with the vapors sent to a compressor The compressed vapor is used as a heat source for the evaporation process Low boiling point components such as ammonia are concentrated while clean water is distilled off at higher temperatures “The clean water can be used for irrigation while the NPK can be applied to fields as needed or packaged and sold to others ” says De Jong “In addition the captured aqueous ammonia can be injected into the soil as needed ” The Varcor process was developed in a joint venture with Sedron Agriculture which works with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to solve human sanitation challenges in the developing world When De Jong learned about the process he approached the company about applying the technology to agriculture “The results of the 2 Varcors operational on our Indiana and Texas dairies are very encouraging ” says De Jong “Eventually we believe the Varcor system could eliminate the need for manure lagoons effectively creating a closed loop farm system ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Sedron Technologies P O Box 31 Sedro-Wooley Wash 98284 ph 360 399-6193; info@sedron com; www sedron com

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