D4-Upcast«r Fanning Saturday, Juna 28,1986
Virginia Farm Tour Highlights Manure Storage Systems
BY JULIE GOCHENOUR
Virginia Correspondent
HARRISONBURG, Va. -
Farmers in Rockingham County,
Virginia are benefiting from a
program to clean up the waters of
the Chesapeake Bay. High
nitrogen levels in surface water
that reaches the Bay are seriously
affecting marine life there. In
response to the problem, Virginia’s
Division of Soil and Water Con
servation has set up a program
that works with farmers to reduce
the nitrogen from agricultural
sources.
The heart of the effort is the
Chesapeake Bay Agricultural Best
Management Practice Cost Share
Program and has been very well
received by county producers.
Rockingham is Virginia’s leading
agricultural county with about 300
dairies, and has been pin-pointed
as a major source of nitrogen
pollution. The Chesapeake Bay
Program is set up to limit this by
providing financial incentives that
encourage farmers to invest in
waste management systems which
control nitrogen-rich run-off from
Manure from Dewitt Heatwole's earthen storage pond
combines with a second con- Crete unit to provide the farmer
with up to 40 weeks of storage for 80-cow dairy herd.
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with a store near you at
732 Tulpehocken St. Stevens & Portland
2 blks. off Sch. Ave. Off Balligomingo Rd.
Reading, PA W. Conshohocken, PA
(215)374-2136 (215)825-5440
435 Amity Rd.
Behind Jewetcor
Harrisburg, PA
(717)234-8600
318 W. DiamondSt
West End of Town
Coatesville, PA
(215)384-1900
Berks Welding Supply. Inc.
animal manures.
Nearly 50 farmers toured the
county recently to get a firsthand
look at some of these systems.
Much of the money from the
program has gone into concrete or
earthen storage facilities for
animal wastes and these were the
emphasis of the tour. Producers
also had the opportunity to quiz
owner/operators on their
management of the systems and
how they fit into the total farming
opetation.
Heatwole Dairy
Farm
The first stop on the tour was
Dewitt Heatwole’s dairy west of
Harrisonburg. In addition to an
older 70-by-70-by-5-foot concrete
storage facility next to the barn,
Heatwole recently installed a 39-
by-39-by-10-foot earthen pond with
the help of cost sharing funds from
the Bay Program and A.C.P.
program of the ASCS. These two
facilities allow the dairyman to
store more than 61,800 cubic feet of
combined manure, washwater and
precipitation—or 280 days of waste
from his 80-animal dairy herd
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Earl Street
1 blk. off Rt. 61
Sch. Haven, PA
(717) 385-1667
1890 State St.
Cnr. of State & Lemon
E. Petersburg, PA
(717) 569-8288
Chesapeake Bay Program In Action
when kept in total confinement
The two facilities form a com
plementary system that gives
Heatwole additional flexibility.
Manure and washwater from the
barn are deposited into the con
crete structure and pumped up to
the primary earthen pond as it
becomes necessary. When the
‘liquid manure is to be used, it’s
pumped out of the concrete facility
and the upper holding area is
allowed to drain back into the older
structure. From there it is loaded
and applied to cropland at the
appropriate times for fertilization.
Horst Dairy
Farm
Mennonite dairyman Daniel
Horst also lets fertilization needs
rather than limited capacity
determine when he empties his
storage facility. The brand new 50-
head operation has a 365-day total
confinement waste storage
capacity of 84,318 cubic feet and
Roscoe Wine's gravity flow manure system includes the circular concrete pit pictured
that feeds truck located downhill.
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was the second stop on the waste
management tour.
Producers were particularly
interested in the mechanics of the
set-up on Horst’s farm. The ear
then storage pond accepts manure
and waste water from the
operation through a two-foot pipe
under the bam and lot. Manure is
pushed to a drop structure in the
floor of the freestall bam, and
waste water carries it, by gravity
flow, to the pond. There is also a
push-off ramp at the edge of the
paved and grooved lot.
Although no funding was used to
construct Horst’s facility, Bill
Patterson, district conservationist
and tour guide for the day, pointed
out that the dairyman still had to
follow the same procedures as
farmers who participate in the
program. “You can’t just start
digging a hole,” Patterson ex
plained, noting that ground and
surface water, as well as soil
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composition, plays an important
part in site location and facility
design.
Animal waste easily seeps
through the porous limestone soils
of Rockingham County and adds to
the nitrogen in ground and surface
water. This means that the
majority of producers have had to
pass up the less expensive earthen
facilities, which Patterson calls
“just a regular old farm pond,”
and erect concrete structures
instead. These prevent any
seepage from the storage facility,
even when surface water is located
nearby.
The tour visited just such a
facility during their third stop at
Carl Fifer’s dairy farm. The cir
cular 64-by-12-foot concrete
structure was constructed above
ground and can hold 32,672 cubic
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(Turn to Page 05)