Home-Built System Pumps Manure Up To A Mile Away

Home-Built System Pumps Manure Up To A Mile Away MANURE HANDLING Equipment To get hog manure onto his crops Mike Kohnen Pomeroy Iowa spent two years putting together a low-cost system that pumps manure up to a mile away to a tractor-mounted injector Kohnen custom-feeds 2 800 hogs and must deal with a 1 9 million gal lagoon His home-built system uses 1 mile of 6-in dia feeder hose and 1/4 mile of 5-in dia drag hose that he pulls behind his tractor-mounted injector A heavy-built reel can carry all 10 000 lbs of hose Cost of a commercial hose reel alone would have been astronomical Kohnen notes I never attempted anything this involved before so every piece posed its own peculiar challenges to build I just kept hoping everything would work With all but a few minor start-up problems everything has worked even better than I expected To make the hose reel he first bought an old cement mixer truck and stripped it down keeping only the rear axle tires frame and mixer drive assembly The mixer drive now attaches directly to the 9-ft dia reel which he made out of 1 7/8-in tubing A tractor pto drives the truck s transmission which mounts backwards in the truck frame The transmission drives the truck s original hydraulic pump which in turn drives the chain and sprocket on the big reel An oil flow lever on the hydraulic motor forwards reverses speeds up or slows down the reel Other pieces of Kohnen s innovative manure handling system include a high pressure pump feeder pump agitator and injector unit The high pressure pump mounts on an old single-axle White Freightliner semi tractor equipped with a 318 Detroit Diesel engine He cut off the truck cab and mounted the engine at the middle of the chassis He built a frame to mount a Cornell high pressure pump on one side of the transmission A 12-in 8-grooved pulley mounts on the transmission s rear output shaft and belt drives a 9-in 8-grooved pulley mounted on the pump which runs at an ideal 2 400 rpm s while the engine runs at 1 800 rpm s It pumps 1 000 to 1 100 gal of manure per minute at 110 to 115 psi s A 60 gpm hydraulic pump mounted on the same shaft as the 12-in drive pulley on the main pump powers Kohnen s 43-ft feeder pump that draws manure out of the lagoon He built it using a 40-ft long 8-in dia grain auger Two 3 by 6-in impellers mount at the end of the tube inside a cage The feeder pump mounts on the axle and is equipped with wheels off an old stalk cutter so it can be easily backed into the lagoon It will pump more than the main pump can handle Kohnen says So I rigged up a slide door that works like a pressure release valve right near the hydraulic motor A 40-ft handle connects to the slide allowing me to open it and pump some material back into the lagoon to avoid damage to the hose Kohnen agitates his lagoon for two hours before he begins pumping then keeps moving the agitator around the lagoon The agitator is 43 ft long with a 6-ft dia four-blade propeller mounted on a hub connected to a driveshaft made of 3 1/2-in dia heavy wall tubing Propeller blades were cut out of 1/2-in thick by 2-ft wide sections of I-beam off a grain elevator scale The agitator mounts on wheels off a A2 Gleaner combine It uses a final drive from an L2 Gleaner combine for a gear box to achieve the right gear reduction It s equipped with custom-made plastic bearings that Kohnen says wear better and cost less than steel Kohnen uses a 150 hp tractor to turn the agitator s propeller at 100 rpm s The injector he built injects 1 000 gpm at 4 to 6 in deep traveling up to 3 to 3 1/2 mph He built it out of parts of two chisel plows It features 11 16-in wide chisel sweeps on 24-in spacings and a manifold with a 5-in inlet and 11 2-in outlets He cut the 1 1/2-ft dia manifold which mounts on top of the injector unit out of 3/8-in thick steel He uses 11 lengths of 2-in dia hose fitted with 2-in dia pipes mounted behind the sweeps for injectors He covered the Vshaped openings in back of the sweeps with 1/8-in thick steel to ensure manure gets into the ground He pulls the rig with his Allis 8070 For more information contact: FARM SHOW Followup Mike Kohnen 1841 Janesville Ave Pomeroy Iowa 50575 ph 712 468-2826

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