# Composting scale for 40 acres?



## Frantz (Feb 18, 2018)

I want to start a composting site for a 40 acre farm the owner would like to be run "natural". I have access to wood from a landscaper (getting a chipper) and horse manure. Plan on getting some jersey barriers and setting up a composting site I'll mix via FEL. How much volume would you think I need to plan for to keep 40 acres happy and well fed?


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

Not sure of the volume required but you are going to need more N than you are going to get from the horse manure. Perhaps you can get some poultry manure or pig manure. You may need to be careful with pig manure due to the mineral supplements that I understand they use. I seem to recall on a field trip that there was an issue in VA Beach on farms that spread a lot of pig poop, Zn comes to mind. We use sawdust for bedding and the N in the horse poop isn't enough to fix that. NH4NO4 works great, but you can't get it.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

May have to set up a worm box if you can't get litter. I understand the castings are pretty rich and help offset the wood fiber. Those cheap $10 round bales have some good nutrients too


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## Frantz (Feb 18, 2018)

Yeah. The landscape guy I have gets me some grass too, and that's all residential without spray. I know I need to get the ratios in order to make it all work. I have a small flock of chickens, but not enough to get what I need (time to get more chickens). Actually I'm planning on running some "chicken tractors" next spring to get some help on the fields.

A worm box to take care of 40 acres seems like it'd be scale prohibitive. I'm trying to organically fertilize the whole thing. I realize it'd be easier to just get things back to spec and wait a few years to re-certify, but the landowner really wants to do things natural, and her pickiness and my willingness to conform is really the only reason the land was available.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Can you get mushroom compost delivered up there?


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## Frantz (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm sure I can, but that cost money and I am getting paid to take the compostable materials. I figure if I get the right size set up it can be a profitable sub-business to take wastes and get them composted and use them to the fields benefit. I just really don't know how many compost tons per acre is typical and how much space I'll need for the various stages of composting. I'm sorta thinking three bays, one for finished compost ready to apply, one that is being actively composted, and one that new materials are being added to. I just don't know how big they really have to be for my scale.

Hows this sound. Get six 6' jersey barriers this year, set them up in two rows 84 inchs apart (72" bucket used with some play). Once full get three more and continue... I think that seems sensible enough, I just really have no idea of the scope I'm getting involved in.


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## hayray (Feb 23, 2009)

I fertilize all my acres with manure and compost. I have good luck with 3 to 6 tons per acre but the more the better in almost all cases as most organic fertilized fields are under fertilized. I see no yield or nutritional difference between using horse manure/sawdust combo surface applied or using leaf compost. Either one has hardly any tested nitrogen but you for sure see the nitrogen effect in the spring green up not explained by nutrient test. Only way to get much nitrogen is to use raw manure. Legumes inter seeded help a lot. Composting really is only important if you are trying to cut down on volume, otherwise spread the partially composted material opportunistically to avoid too much costs associated with composting. However, if you are tilling and incorporating then the material needs to be composted for sure.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

OK I’m close enough to the mushroom houses that I get it for free


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

On the rented land we started using a product,, municipal sewage mixed with compost.


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## Frantz (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm not opposed to it, we have used it on the home farm, but it gets NIMBY complaints and the woman I rent from probably would frown upon it. IDK where these people thing it all goes....


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

Frantz said:


> I'm sure I can, but that cost money and I am getting paid to take the compostable materials. I figure if I get the right size set up it can be a profitable sub-business to take wastes and get them composted and use them to the fields benefit. I just really don't know how many compost tons per acre is typical and how much space I'll need for the various stages of composting. I'm sorta thinking three bays, one for finished compost ready to apply, one that is being actively composted, and one that new materials are being added to. I just don't know how big they really have to be for my scale.
> 
> Hows this sound. Get six 6' jersey barriers this year, set them up in two rows 84 inchs apart (72" bucket used with some play). Once full get three more and continue... I think that seems sensible enough, I just really have no idea of the scope I'm getting involved in.


You'll probably want well over 200 ton of compost, and by that estimate you'd probably need around 13 of your compost bins. But since it takes at least a year to compost you'll probably want twice that so you can have storage for the current years' material and then piles starting for the next year's material. I assume you must have a skid loader? Because I can't imagine loading all that with a tractor loader.


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## Frantz (Feb 18, 2018)

Thanks for those figures! A bit outta my league again.


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

Rereading the thread, saw you had access to horse manure as well. Just to give you an example of scale there too, I worked at a place where we had 100 draft horses (mostly Belgians). We'd feed about 24 round bales a month if I'm recalling correctly. We had a massive manure spreader but even with what we scraped off the dry lot several times a year, it was only enough to cover 20 acres at most.


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