Recipient Organization
RT SOLUTIONS LLC
32 HERITAGE DRIVE
Geneseo,NY 14454-1188
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The historical land balance model between the acreage needed to grow the feed to support a dairy cow and the area required to safely utilize the nutrients in the manure produced by a cow is no longer valid for many American dairies. Production specializations, advances in crop/animal science and the expansion of dairy herds, has created critical situations in which excess nutrients from surplus manure has contributed to air and water quality problems. The only viable solution is to have raw manure converted into a value-added product that allows it to be transported out of agriculturally intensive watersheds. These manure management costs have to be recouped from sales of the value added product (RTS proposes vermicompost) thus allowing excess nutrients from dairy operations to be handled in an economically and environmentally sustainable manor. Vermicomposting of animal manures is an emerging waste management technology with many technical and potential economic
benefits over traditional composting systems. This project will evaluate the true viability of integrating a large-scale vermicomposting facility with a working 1,000 head dairy operation to produce a consistent quality vermicompost product year round in a temperate humid climate. A state of the art vermicomposting facility will be a win-win-win scenario for the animal producer (dairy), vermicomposting facility owner, and the consumers of the earthworm soil conditioner/fertilizer products.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
A true agricultural-production scale, hybrid-earthworm composting system (10 tons per day), will be constructed and fully commissioned to evaluate the technical, operational, and economic feasibility of vermicomposting as a dairy waste management alternative for the temperate regions of the United States. Continuous operating data, finished vermicompost product evaluation, weekly system production, and related economical parameters of a working vermicomposting facility will be collected, in order to determine the commercial potential for integrating large-scale vermicomposting systems into existing dairy operations. RT Solutions LLC (RTS) will perform this evaluation through the collection and analysis of real-time data from the Company's new, state-of-the-art vermicomposting facility recently integrated into a 1,000 head dairy operation located in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. Specific technical objectives for the project include: 1. Evaluation of RTS's
newly installed dairy manure separation system and integration into the Coyne Family Dairy operation. 2. Develop operational methods to link thermophillic composting parameters (physical, chemical, and biological) to earthworm dynamics inside the vermicomposting digester. RTS's hybrid system requires proper composting to maintain high worm population and overall system productivity. An operational model will be developed (dynamic balance) that has to account for the varying properties of initial feedstocks (separated dairy solids and off-specification dairy feed silage) and seasonal climatic conditions; 3. Facility engineering. Improvements to the processing / vermicomposting phase with an emphasis on economic/labor inputs needed for the physical environmental controls necessary to sustain the high-density worm population. Worm population is key to meeting the required financial targets based on facility product production rates (volume of product to sell). 4. A redesign and
fabrication of the flow-through digester feeding systems based upon the physical characteristics of pre-composted materials. 5. Unit cost and operational evaluation of increased production and related economic data from installing a fourth, flow-through digester; 6. Develop a product marketing program thru determining the qualitative and quantitative results from a dedicated market study and sales effort to assess the actual market size and per ton value for various finished vermicompost products; 7. Obtaining U.S. Compost Council's Seal of Testing Approval (STA) for product and becoming organically certified through the Organics Materials Review Institute (OMRI) through extensive material sampling and analysis will be required to obtain both testing approval and organic certification.
Project Methods
In order to satisfy the above technical objectives, research will be conducted by RTS employees, and select consultants at RTS new and fully functional integrated dairy / vermicomposting pilot facility located in Avon, New York. A significant level of testing, data collection and operational experiments will be conducted at each point of the process throughout the vermicomposting pilot facility. It is also essential that the research approach (all operational experiments, testing, and data collection) include the analysis of seasonal effects and climatic changes, experienced in the Northeast, have on the processing and environmental controls of the facility. This will be a key point in evaluating the true analysis of the systems viability with respect to geography and climate.