Compost Windrow Turner?

[TreeGuyz]

Anyone here use one of these?

http://www.globalrepair.ca/507/507open.JPG

I'm beginning to produce more compost than I can efficiently turn with my 1533 and the backhoe needs too much room to maneuver. I've been searching and reading everything I can find online, but I'd like any 1st person experience and input.

Thanks!
John

 

[Carl_NH]

Welcome to TBN!

There is a lot of good information on composting on the Cornell web site as well there are those that say turning is not needed for aeration.

My experience from farming days, and now doing small scale composting with mostly leaves (10 CY finished compost a year) is getting the right mix of carbon and nitrogen and turning once in the fall to mix the C/N and again early spring then let it cook for two months then maybe one more turn early summer.

This produces good results and usable compost in the fall timeframe for gardens and trees.

If you want some mechanical turner I recall one that I saw using a truck axle and the PTO which mixed the pile with a mid mount the scraper blade hilled it up again. The commercial machines seem pricey $25K or more..

What's the material you will compost? Do you intend to sell this or is this for the feeding your own trees/land?

Carl

 

[leonz]

There are a bunch of towed and self propelled units on the market.

The issue is one of what you can afford.

You of course know the piles must be turned over and allowed to
cook and expose the compost to the air and water and the microbes in the
air and whether you are adding carcasses/leaf litter and or fertilizer to the
compost pile.

The compost is kept in long rows and a compost turner goes down
the pile/row and turns it over the entire pile and the process of
cooking keeps on going until the microbes are dead.

As carl said the cornell site has plenty of useable information.

Not to name drop but the www.farmtek.com folks have a composting system they sell that does not require turning the material.

 

[TreeGuyz]

Thanks for the replies! Yes, I have seen the good material on the Cornell site, as well as several other sites. One that has my attention is a project in Vermont that's even posted CAD drawings/plans to build your own PTO-driven turner.

Man, you are right about the commercially built units being pricey -- ouch! We are considering going after some grant money for the project but even using OPM (Other Peoples' Money) I still am hesitant to go after that kind of funding. Hence any input from anyone who's actually using one of these things.

More background -- Currently, we are producing enough compost for our own use. Last year, we bought a 10-wheel dump truck that I use to go around to several large horse boarding farms in the area and collect 5-10 yards of stall cleanings every trip. And I'm collecting most weekends. We have applied much of what we have learned from several of the sites (Cornell's among them) to developing our own optimal "recipe" over the last couple of years of learning how to do real composting on a large scale -- Carbon to Nitrogen to Moisture to Green manure to brown manure to aeration and anaerobic to aerobic processes ... and chatting it up with big time composters at the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show we attend every year. As well as working closely with our local extension agent and the guru at Univ of Md. We think we are closer to upping our game and going bigger time -- producing for sale and even going after organic certification. Part of our research now includes our equipment mix. I think to ease compaction, improve mixing and aeration, and add moisture during drought, a windrow turner is a better answer than our current use of the giant backhoe loader (which requires about as much space to maneuver as an Iowa-class battleship )

I'll check out that farmtek system once their site comes back up The way I have to build the windrows, I think I need to turn them to get the best mix -- A local tree company dumps wood chips here and between that and the non-homogeneous mixtures of the horse manure I collect, I have to mix it by turning it -- hence my interest in the windrow turners.

A few of our neighbor farms (Plain Community produce farmers) have expressed interest in compost I'm producing and my immediate neighbor is currently letting me use about an acre of a field that adjoins my property for the large-scale project (he gets the bulk of the finished project).

One of the other things I need to figure out is if my current chore tractor is going to be up to the task (MF 1533 with 26 hp at the PTO) or if I am going to have to upgrade to a tractor with more PTO HP.

Thanks for the insight and input!

John

 

[leonz]

Hello John,

Before you go spending money you do not have,
you should be looking at your composting methodology.

At most with the farmtek system you will need to invest
in very very small manure spreader (50 bushel size) TO LAYER the material to be composed.

The farmtek method bypasses windrow turning entirely by covering the
windrow and sealing it on the edges to aid in cooking it with the heat the pile
generates which is absorbed and distributed by tubing under the pile.


Wth thier method they install soaker lines on the windrow, cover it, seal the edges and also collect the manure tea.