New Effluent System Opportunity For Waimacher Farms

Aaron's vision was to create an efficient effluent management system for maximising flexibility on the farm.

Waimacher doesn't let opportunities pass them by. Aaron has been running two neighbouring properties and when the opportunity arose to buy an adjacent block the company grabbed it. From there it was full steam ahead in amalgamating the farms and building a new cow shed which also meant a new effluent management system.

‘Amalgamating the farms provided us the opportunity to make everything more efficient. Investing in a new cow shed and effluent system just made sense.’ Aaron said. Once plans for the cow shed were underway it was time to focus on how to manage the effluent. Having visited the farm a few times, Aaron was happy to take advice from Nevada Effluent Management Specialist, Mike. ‘Aaron’s goal was to have an efficient system that minimised labour and maximised flexibility in when they could apply effluent fast. We worked through all the options to come out with a solution that suited the new farm’s operations.’

The first consideration was storage. A large HDPE lined pond was the best option to be able to store plenty of effluent over wet periods when spreading isn’t an option. A weeping wall was considered, but instead Aaron installed a double stone trap to allow organic solids to pass through into the pond.

‘We considered a weeping wall but couldn’t see the point in creating two products to be dealt with, keeping the effluent liquid was easiest for us.’
Aaron Waite – Dairy Farmer

From there a powerful Nevada electric stirrer gets the pond well mixed before a Sabre progressive cavity (PC) pump (which is big enough to handle future expansions) pumps the effluent out to a Greenback Magnum travelling irrigator.

‘It’s [effluent management system] very efficient. Much less work than we thought. We just run the stirrer for around 10 minutes before pumping and it gets a good mix. It certainly grows grass!’

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