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David Ostheller, Fairfield,
Washington, applies low-tech methods to create high-volume compost. |
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One
man’s trash . . .
Turning waste into compost the low-tech way
Compost. There’s something about its rich texture that invites
you to scoop up a handful and sift it through your fingers.
Composting can turn farm residues into stable organic materials
that are safer to store and easier to transport, making them available
at the optimum time for the land and its owner.
When Washington State slammed the door on burning residue from
Kentucky bluegrass seed production, David Ostheller,
an eastern Washington cereal and grass seed producer,
decided to cook it into compost (FW02-038). He grinds the crop residue
into windrows after harvest, then turns the windrows two or three
times in the spring with his homemade turner—an auger attached
to an aging combine—yielding “beautiful, earthlike compost.”
He minimizes transport by composting in nutrient-depleted fields.
As he refines the process, Ostheller is gauging crop response and
collaborating with local towns on joint composting projects.
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| In Sequim on
Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, Jack Caldicott has created
a labor-saving compost turner. |
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In Sequim on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula,
backyard farmer Jack Caldicott sought to squeeze
the labor out of small-scale composting with a rotating compost drum
(FW00-022). Trial and error led him to a motor-driven plastic drum
geared to rotate every 6 hours. The horse manure and garden residue
compost in 10-14 labor-free days, reaching weed-seed-killing temperatures
of 160 degrees. It takes only 2 hours to fill the drum and a half
hour to empty it. And the process turns out better compost.
East of Townsend, Montana, seed potato grower
Steve McCullough figured that composting his cull
potatoes would stem their ability to grow, a requirement under state
law. McCullough partnered with five seed growers and the county
to create a recipe of cull spuds and sawdust (FW98-093), eliminating
the need for fungicides, insecticides and sprout inhibitors.
“We used to haul the culls to cattle feeders or pile and
spray them,” says McCullough, “but we don’t use
any other method (than composting) now.”
Richard Zink of Colorado State
University is examining the effects on soil and water infiltration
of using compost from cull spuds and sawdust. The project (SW00-018)
seeks to reduce synthetic fertilizers, improve water use and raise
crop yields.
In central Utah, egg producers, working with
former USU soils specialist Rich Koenig (SW00-040),
found that composting chicken manure in high-rise laying facilities
reduced flies and the pesticides to control them and generated a
product more marketable than fresh manure.
To spread the word on the growing body of compost knowledge, Cinda
Williams and the University of Idaho coordinated
a satellite broadcast on compost education that reached hundreds
of producers and ag professionals in 13 Western states and two Canadian
provinces (EW97-012).
“The research and practices under the umbrella of sustainable
agriculture assist farmers and ranchers in meeting the challenges
in front of them and better link rural and urban communities.”
Stacie Clary, executive director, California Sustainable Agriculture
Working Group, Santa Cruz, California
Simply Sustainable
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