My Bridgeway Biostimulant trial

[Bury the Trash]

If policy makers want this type of ag there is strong argument for taxing bagged nitrogen. This also chimes well with cutting greenhouse emissions.

Yes and the theory could be that that tax went wholly/directly into a productive stream...... like research or other assisted ways / means of helping to looking forwards .

 

[warksfarmer]

Not missing the point at all - soil is simply dirt without biology and biology need OM to feed it. It’s not hard to understand what happens to a cow if you don’t feed it, livestock in soil is no different !

Of course OM needs N to break it down but also eaten by a multitude of soil biology that eats and process it for you. N that goes into breakdown OM isn’t lost, it’s simply banked for later

You really should come have a look around our place - it would be really interesting as you were very familiar with a lot of our land and soil 10 years ago ....... I expect you wouldn’t recognise it now. Focusing on improving SOM and soil biology has lifted yields at least 10% over that period while using much lower inputs to get them

I was replying to Hilly not you if you look at the post.

 

[warksfarmer]

AD mines OM and soluble nutrition unless fed by waste - growing crops to feed it is frankly the definition of idiotic and the ultimate soil mining process

I can’t believe they will continue to subsidise such utter stupidity and environmental vandalism in the future, it’s as bad as burning straw really. Almost no faster way to release carbon into our atmosphere whilst depleting the resource we depend upon to feed ourselves ......... utter human madness and short term thinking at its finest

AD from waste makes a lot of sense however, certainly a lot better than landfilling it

Capex is also high and I believe it’s a very skilled job to run one successfully. A lot don’t seem to perform or deliver from what I’m told

Earlier on you said ideally you’d have a dairy unit of 200 cows ...... an AD plant is exactly that without the 200 arses to house. You feed it the same stuff you feed cows and it excretes similar stuff to the cows. A 1MW plant is like having a 300 head fairy herd. Same crops without the vet and med bill.

There’s lots of very successful plants running generating electricity or gas/heat whilst proving OM back to the soil.

What you’ve said above shows little or no understanding of what they are and how they work. A 500KW one would suit your operation well if you investigated it properly.

 

[juke]

Earlier on you said ideally you’d have a dairy unit of 200 cows ...... an AD plant is exactly that without the 200 arses to house. You feed it the same stuff you feed cows and it excretes similar stuff to the cows. A 1MW plant is like having a 300 head fairy herd. Same crops without the vet and med bill.

There’s lots of very successful plants running generating electricity or gas/heat whilst proving OM back to the soil.

What you’ve said above shows little or no understanding of what they are and how they work. A 500KW one would suit your operation well if you investigated it properly.

major difference between digestate and cows is one of them has the potential to massacre the worm population, the other has the potential to add to the eco system of a farm

 

[Chalky]

how does it massacre worms?

 

[Lexion1000]

how does it massacre worms?

If you put on too much liquid digestate on in one go worms don’t like it. They love the solid digestate though. Wherever I use it there are black worm casts all over the fields

 

[Chalky]

whats too much? Does it depend on what digestate derived of?

 

[Clive]

Earlier on you said ideally you’d have a dairy unit of 200 cows ...... an AD plant is exactly that without the 200 arses to house. You feed it the same stuff you feed cows and it excretes similar stuff to the cows. A 1MW plant is like having a 300 head fairy herd. Same crops without the vet and med bill.

There’s lots of very successful plants running generating electricity or gas/heat whilst proving OM back to the soil.

What you’ve said above shows little or no understanding of what they are and how they work. A 500KW one would suit your operation well if you investigated it properly.

I think we will have to agree to disagree that AD is not a dairy heard or the biology they bring

The clue is in the name “anaerobic”. There is nothing good for soil life about that

It’s a soil mining system and not anything I would have anywhere near my land thanks

 

[Kevtherev]

It irritates the worms and brings them up to the surface.
Dirty water out of weeping wall manure stores will do the same.

 

[Lexion1000]

I think we will have to agree to disagree that AD is not a dairy heard or the biology they bring

The clue is in the name “anaerobic”. There is nothing good for soil life about that

It’s a soil mining system and not anything I would have anywhere near my land thanks

All muck is anaerobic at point of excretion, the digestion process in any stomach is anaerobic.

 

[Chae1]

Priceless maybe but you have to pay the bills

No point going bust whilst creating lovely sustainable soil ! ............ for someone else to farm

Farming is first and foremost a business for me

If what it says in your books right you'll be able to park up that big horsch sprayer and stop filling liquid fert tanks.

Surely that would be good business?

 

[Clive]

If what it says in your books right you'll be able to park up that big horsch sprayer and stop filling liquid fert tanks.

Surely that would be good business?

I very much hope it’s the last sprayer I buy yes

That’s the aim

 

[Chae1]

I think we will have to agree to disagree that AD is not a dairy heard or the biology they bring

The clue is in the name “anaerobic”. There is nothing good for soil life about that

It’s a soil mining system and not anything I would have anywhere near my land thanks

When are we going to have a ad plant that runs off of slurry and fym?

Thats what makes sense in my opinion getting use of energy twice/three times really. Cow, ad plant, then returning organic matter and digestate to land.

Can't be efficient enough as doesn't seem to have been done.

 

[Chalky]

many farm ones do!

 

[Pebd99]

When are we going to have a ad plant that runs off of slurry and fym?

Thats what makes sense in my opinion getting use of energy twice/three times really. Cow, ad plant, then returning organic matter and digestate to land.

Can't be efficient enough as doesn't seem to have been done.

There’s a thread on here with the exact ad plant running off slurry.

 

[Daniel]

We’ve been using TFP Pro-grain at T1 and T2 for some years.

http://www.tricetuk.com/Pro-Grain.html

I’m naturally sceptical of this kind of thing but the first year we used it we treated some tramlines, but not the majority. We sent the treated and untreated grain off for testing and found better specific weights in the treated samples.

I’ve never tested it since but now we have a trailer with weighcells perhaps this year i’ll miss the odd tramline. Mark out say 200 metres in treated and untreated tramlines, cut a full header width in each and weigh it, as well as send off for sampling?

 

[Brisel]

Earlier on you said ideally you’d have a dairy unit of 200 cows ...... an AD plant is exactly that without the 200 arses to house. You feed it the same stuff you feed cows and it excretes similar stuff to the cows. A 1MW plant is like having a 300 head fairy herd. Same crops without the vet and med bill.

There’s lots of very successful plants running generating electricity or gas/heat whilst proving OM back to the soil.

What you’ve said above shows little or no understanding of what they are and how they work. A 500KW one would suit your operation well if you investigated it properly.

You’ve hit the nail on the head. Yes, carbon leaves the field as biomass and whether it’s cow milk, burps and farts or the CO2 in the AD gas that is vented off, as long as the “waste” is returned to the land it goes a long way to balancing the carbon books. It’s an excellent way of getting on top of a weed problem too.

The worm killer is the high volume/ha of enriched water but careful use of dose rates will mitigate this. Lots of dairy land has high rates of slurry and dirty water applied yet has much higher SOM than an all arable rotation exporting carbon as flour, oil, protein etc.

 

[Clive]

You’ve hit the nail on the head. Yes, carbon leaves the field as biomass and whether it’s cow milk, burps and farts or the CO2 in the AD gas that is vented off, as long as the “waste” is returned to the land it goes a long way to balancing the carbon books. It’s an excellent way of getting on top of a weed problem too.

The worm killer is the high volume/ha of enriched water but careful use of dose rates will mitigate this. Lots of dairy land has high rates of slurry and dirty water applied yet has much higher SOM than an all arable rotation exporting carbon as flour, oil, protein etc.

What extracts the most energy the fastest ? Cow or ad plant ?

 

[Clive]

There’s a thread on here with the exact ad plant running off slurry.

That is how as should work, big one near me runs of waste food which is again a good use of this technology.

How much energy goes into growing crops for AD vs energy out ? And what is the carbon balance sheet like ? Would be interested to know if any one has figures ?

 

[SilliamWhale]

We’ve been using TFP Pro-grain at T1 and T2 for some years.

http://www.tricetuk.com/Pro-Grain.html

I’m naturally sceptical of this kind of thing but the first year we used it we treated some tramlines, but not the majority. We sent the treated and untreated grain off for testing and found better specific weights in the treated samples.

I’ve never tested it since but now we have a trailer with weighcells perhaps this year i’ll miss the odd tramline. Mark out say 200 metres in treated and untreated tramlines, cut a full header width in each and weigh it, as well as send off for sampling?

Whats in it?