« BackNews: AD Plant Complements Beef Finishing Operation

Anaerobic Digestion Facility Complements Beef Finishing

A Scottish farmer has revealed how he uses anaerobic digestion (AD) technology to help with his large-scale beef finishing operation. 

John McIntosh told Farming Life that he uses feedstock from cattle slurry and silage, which is grown on the farm at Dunragit in south-west Scotland. 

This has helped the farm, which finishes 2,000 cattle a year, run at full capacity, with the AD plant helping to produce high-quality grass for the cows. 

We have always regarded slurry as a valuable fertiliser source. And of course, it constitutes a fundamental part of the feed stock mix used for the AD plant,” he stated.

Mr McIntosh continued: “The digestate from the plant to be a very high value fertiliser.”

To easily store and transport this around the farm, he invested in a one-million-gallon Post-Tension Above Ground Slurry Store, which he put 500m from the farmyard. 

This enables him to transport the digestate from the original store to the new tank through an underground pipe. Therefore, the digestate can now be accessed anywhere on the site whenever it is needed.

Moore Concrete manufactured and installed the slurry store for the farm and provided a chartered engineer to inspect the site before and after construction. 

Explaining how the AD process works, Melissa Wilson, an extension manure management specialist from the University of Minnesota spoke to Brownfield AG News

She said digestate makes nitrogen found in manure more “plant-available”. 

“So, it can make it a more useful fertiliser source,” Ms Wilson stated, adding this is particularly useful at the moment as prices are soaring. 

For tank blanketing valves for use in AD plants, take a look here.