In the spring of 2015, Bio Minerals Technologies began working with a 350-head dairy out of Marlin, Washington. They had a common and recurring issue with their manure pits. They were running a 3-stage lagoon, and it stank! Plus, like all manure lagoons, solids build up on the bottom over time and reduce the capacity of the lagoons. These solids, and the anaerobic nature of the lagoons, breed pathogens. The pathogens make it smell bad. Almost all manure lagoons smell bad, but they don’t have to!
We applied our proprietary manure culture to the lagoons and then stepped back to wait. It was as simple as that. About six weeks after we applied the culture, we visited with them, and they said it still smelled really bad. We went out to take a look at it and the videos below show what we saw.
Across the lagoon, we saw surging eruptions of gasses and organic materials. We asked the farmers if they had seen this type of activity on the lagoons before and they said this was something new. This was not aeration, this was the work of the microbes we had put into the lagoon. The microbes were digesting all the putrefied organic material that was on the bottom of the lagoons. Since the lagoons had been accumulating this material for some time, there was a lot of work for those microbes to do. We told the farmer to be patient. The right biology was in control, and given enough time, it would digest the putrefied material, liquefy it, and the odor would be under control.
Sure enough, when we followed up with them about six weeks later the odor was significantly reduced and continues to decline. With the proper biology in charge, the nature of the lagoon had been completely changed and it was now functioning properly and truly preparing the manure for direct application to the next crop cycle.
This isn’t the only instance of solving odor problems in manure pits and lagoons. Bio Minerals Technologies has been doing it for years, with constant success.
Another incident was in Burley, Idaho. A large dairy there (2500 head) had a very large waste lagoon. The odor from the lagoon was so strong you could smell it in church over a mile away! They have been treating their lagoon with our Manure Culture and now you can’t smell it in church any more!
Are you having odor problems or capacity reduction problems with your lagoons? Bio Minerals Technologies has helped many farmers over the years. Let us help you too!