LETHBRIDGE – Larry Nolan and his family started feeding cattle in the early 1970s to use extra feed grain on their Picture Butte area farm.
As their feedlot prospered and grew to a one-time capacity of 12,000 head, a growing mountain of manure also presented itself.
Nolan decided the manure was not a problem but a valuable commodity that could fertilize the operation’s eight quarters of cropland.
The Nolans rotate their manure spreading operations so a field receives an application every three to four years. They also have a neighbour willing to take manure on three quarters.
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Soil tests show an adequate level of manure works out to about 50 to 60 tonnes per acre.
“By doing that, we can keep up with our nutrient requirements for our cropping,” he told a tour group attending a manure conference in Lethbridge June 25.
They started composting manure several years ago.
“I have land 30 miles away and it was the only feasible way of moving the manure that distance,” he said.
“What I’m finding, with the increased cost of chemical fertilizers, it is becoming more doable all the time,” he said.
The Nolans hired a composting contractor who has the proper equipment and expertise. They keep it for use on their own farm.
“It has too much value for what some people were willing to pay,” he said.
Composting seemed like a natural fit for the Porcupine Corral Cleaning company at Picture Butte.
Based in the heart of feedlot country where more than 2.6 million tonnes of manure are produced annually, the company invested in equipment to turn windrows of manure into compost piles.
A $500,000 piece of machinery called a scarab turns windrows efficiently and evenly for the best composting action to take place.
A pile may be turned 15 to 20 times before it becomes compost from the straw and manure mix, said company foreman Bruce Atkinson.
Every six months, the company turns over 60,000 tonnes of raw manure. That amount shrinks by 60 percent and can be put back into farmland.
“Our volumes are getting bigger and we are selling more product so we are doing a good thing,” said Atkinson.
Making compost since 1999, the company sells it back to farmers for $12 per tonne plus the cost of trucking and spreading.
Most of Canada’s feedlots are located in the Lethbridge region where the climate is warm, dry and windy.
Water must be added to the compost piles. Otherwise the microbes stop digesting and material can blow away.
If that happens, “it is not compost, it is dried manure,” said researcher Frank Larney at Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge Research Station. “Composting is the single largest change in feedlot manure management in Alberta in recent years.”
However, because of the labour and expertise required, composting is still uncommon and is used on only about 10 percent of available manure.
Researchers including Larney are interested in the soil dynamics when carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous from compost are applied to the land.
The Lethbridge research centre has been studying composting since 1996.
Researchers know long-term applications of raw manure on fields show barley yields decline because too much went on the land.
“We like to say manure is not a waste. It is a resource, but you can have too much of it. The ‘more is better’ concept does not apply with manure,” said Larney.
Converting raw manure into compost gives it value. Compost reduces manure’s bulk to 65 percent of its original volume.
Most of the losses come from water disappearance. For example 1,000 kilograms of manure contains 700 kg of water while 1,000 kg of compost contains 300 kg of water.
Compost can be a good substitute for commercial inorganic fertilizers. It has acceptable levels of nitrogen and phosphorus as well as organic matter not found in inorganic fertilizer.
A study on irrigated land growing potatoes showed producers could stop applying phosphorus fertilizer and cut back nitrogen inorganic fertilizer by one third if manure compost was applied.
In addition, pathogens like the gastrointestinal parasites giardia and cryptosporidia are killed during the composting process. The high levels of heat generated can wipe out most weed seeds too if the compost is allowed to cure for up to 84 days.
