ENVIRONMENT EFFLUENT INFRASTRUCTURE
The effluent efficiency experts Size does matter. Mike Visser talked to Sheryl Haitana about how well designed infrastructure is making easy work of the farm’s effluent several years after it was built. Photos by: Emma McCarthy
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rom the natural gravity fall to the capacity and shape of the sludge beds, a Te Awamutu dairy farm is benefiting from a sophisticated effluent system design. Haerepo Trust Farm at Te Awamutu has no expensive solids separator or vibrating screens, just separation mesh screens the effluent filters through, which is so efficient there is no stirrer required in the pond. It’s a design which has taken away the headache of dealing with effluent on a daily basis, sharemilker Mike Visser says. “It’s really turned a liability into a huge asset. “We are fortunate here that it is all natural fall, so there is no pumping at all
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to get from the feedpad to the pond. It’s all gravity though the sludge beds into the pond.” The only pumping required is from the pond to the Weta low-rate irrigator and the flood wash tank. “We are not reliant on power to get the effluent into the pond so if there is a power cut we don’t get caught out. And we don’t get the wear and tear on pump gear. “Because anything that has to deal with effluent needs a high level of maintenance. Effluent is very corrosive, it’s horrible stuff.” MIke and Sue Visser have been sharemilking for the Barton family between Te Awamutu and Otorohanga since 1997. The position was originally
170ha milking 550 cows, but grew in 2001 when the family purchased 120ha across the road. They now are milking 950 Friesian and Friesian crossbreds in a split calving system, milking 200 cows through winter. The farm’s original effluent system consisted of a feedpad which they scraped daily into a tiny pond at the bottom of the feedpad. That pond only had about four days worth of storage, half of that storage was taken up by the solid crust on the top, Mike says. The pond had to be daily stirred by a tractor power take-off stub shaft and the irrigation lines were constantly blocked or the flow was so low the travelling irrigators hardly worked.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | June 2021
