What does a hog barn operator do when his nearest neighbors are conservation farmers who don’t want their soil torn up by liquid manure soil injectors?
As the number of hog barns and minimum and zero till farmers grows, the problem will also grow unless minimum disturbance manure injectors are developed, said Gordon Hultgreen of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute.
“The farmers in zero-till tend to be progressive by definition and they would be among the first to get the low-cost nutrients from the barn,” he said.
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“But the tearing up of the soil by high disturbance injection will destroy what they have been trying to build up for years, i.e. (disturbance) will generate a tremendous number of weeds.”
Given the high cost of transporting liquid manure, which has a high water content, hog barn operators want to apply the manure to fields as nearby as possible.
No zero-till manure injector systems are commercially available, so PAMI decided to investigate how existing seed and fertilizer zero and minimum-till openers could be adapted at low cost to do the job.
PAMI wanted a tool that could apply a maximum of 10,000-12,000 gallons of manure per acre.
“Because the manure is so dilute in terms of nutrients, you need a lot on, but also, because of the cost of transportation, you want to be able to put three years supply on at one time and that’s about 12,000 gallons,” he said.
The institute looked at about 10 openers, including discs, cultivator shank mounted openers and wide blade.
Results reached
The results can be broken into two categories.
For true zero-till farmers, the disc openers are best, he said.
Minimum-till operators might consider the openers PAMI has identified. “A little more disturbance is perhaps a good tradeoff for less complexity and lower cost. It depends on the farmer’s needs.
“All of them are considerably better than very high disturbance injection sweeps.
“Considering we were putting it on with big guns, dumping it on the surface without incorporation, we have come a long way just by injecting it now.
“The next step is to inject it with less disturbance … to refine it and we are pretty close, but we aren’t quite there but we could be in the next couple of years.”
All the non-disc openers could put down the required volume, but most of the disc openers couldn’t penetrate the ground deeply enough to apply 10,000-12,000 gallons an acre, he said.
The openers were tested in the fall of 1997 and spring of 1998 in wheat stubble at Humboldt, Sask.
All openers were on 12-inch spacing.
Bourgault mid-row bander:
The commercial fertilizer-banding opener uses a single 19-inch disc operating at a slight angle to the direction of travel. However, the standard spring tension had problems cutting deep enough into the soil.
PAMI modified the unit with a stronger spring, allowing it to penetrate to a depth of 43Ú4 to five inches.
It could apply up to 9,000 gallons per acre with no slurry appearing outside of the furrow. Soil disturbance was good at one mile per hour and fair at three m.p.h. There was enough standing stubble remaining to provide good snow trapping.
Dutch Industries coulter: A commercial seeding and fertilizer banding opener that uses a single 18-inch disc with a rubber closing wheel that is operated at a slight angle to the direction of travel.
It can be tilted laterally from the vertical axis and because this setting allowed the greatest amount of volume injection, the test used maximum tilt setting.
The unit has maximum penetration of four inches.
It had good injection performance at 3,000 gallons per acre, but at 6,000 gallons had fair performance with 65 percent of the liquid visible in the furrow and 10 percent pooling on the surface. Higher rates had poor performance.
Soil disturbance was similar to the Bourgault.
Yetter Avenger coulter: It is built for manure injection using a 25-inch coulter with a rubber closing wheel operated on the side of the coulter. The working depth was seven inches but it could go nine inches deep.
There was a problem with the rubber closing wheel plugging, but PAMI believes this will be resolved without trouble on later models.
It provides excellent injection efficiency at rates up to 14,000 gallons per acre. It provided good injection efficiency up to 6,000 gallons at four inches deep.
It required 11Ú2 times the draft to pull at the seven-inch depth compared to four inches.
It requires high down-force on each coulter to achieve seven-inch penetration and needs either additional weight on the toolbar or transfer of weight from a mounted three-point hitch.
Soil disturbance was rated good with about 42 percent of the surface covered with loose soil at speeds up to three m.p.h.
Haybuster 32-inch wide blade: It is a low lift V-shaped blade similar to the Noble blade.
A dual-delivery manifold was made for the back of the opener to direct the slurry along both sides.
It operated at four inches deep.
It had excellent injection efficiency with no visible liquid in the furrow or surface at rates up to 12,000 gallons per acre.
While the surface was not disturbed, the amount of sub-surface disturbance was a concern and could result in weed germination and disruption of soil pores.
As a result it was judged not acceptable to zero-till farming.
HarvesTechnology Hollow Wing: A bolt-on seeding opener consisting of a one-inch wide vertical section and a hollow, four-inch wide shovel attached to the bottom of the opener. The company is also known as AtomJet.
The leading edges of the opener have carbide inserts for abrasion protection. Liquid flows from the supply hose through the centre of the vertical section of the opener and discharges through the rear of the hollow wing section.
It provided excellent injection efficiency at rates up to 13,000 gallons per acre.
Soil disturbance was poor at all speeds and depths except for the two m.p.h., three-inch treatment where it was rated fair.
Greentrac: A machine from Ireland.
In pasture, soil disturbance was low at all speeds and had good injection performance at 3,300 galons per acre, but poor performance at 6,600 and 13,300 gallons per acre.
It could penetrate only 31Ú2 to 41Ú2 inches.
