Preventing water entering your slurry tank
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Measures to avoid water entering slurry storage tanks were listed by Kilkenny-based Teagasc dairy advisor Nigel Kennington in a recent edition of the Environmental Edge podcast.
“Something as simple as roof chutes, if there’s a leak in a chute, the water can flow into the tank and you’d be surprised, with some of the deluges of rain, you could put a foot of water in a tank in a downpour if your chutes are wrong. Just having them hanging right and having the chutes big enough, sometimes the chutes aren’t wide enough to take the volume of water off the roofs,” Nigel said.
“Trying to avoid excess water coming in off the yard can prevent an awful lot of harm, in terms of using up capacity. It can be difficult to keep water out of tanks, depending on falls in yards. There could be options there in terms of kerbing or something like that, to get the flow of water away from the tank itself”, Nigel said.
Sloping land in or adjacent to yards often poses challenges. “Where are your high-risk points? Is there a farm road that falls down towards the yard, and is there a way of putting a speedbump, I like to call them, on the roadway to take some of that water away before it gets to the yard? A kerb in the right place can divert a bit of clean water to the right area before it gets soiled,” he said.
Something as simple as a clay bank on a roadway can make a significant difference. “Is there water flowing during a flash flood to a particular point in the yard? Is there a way that you could redirect that water?”
“Something simple, like having a shear grab rather than a tine grab moving silage around the yard, you’re dropping less silage with a shear grab, and there’s less area dirtied that’s going to be washed with rainwater”, he said.
Regardless of any slopes, minimising the area of the yard through which cows manoeuvre is also worth doing. “Minimise the amount of area that they’re dirtying,” Nigel advised.
“If you’re washing out the parlour, how long are you spending on the hose? If you have a young lad there, and he’s half on the phone, and the hose is running the whole time, that can have a massive impact on the amount of soiled water you create,” Nigel said.
“A spring in the wrong place in the yard can have an awful impact on your capacity. I’ve seen it, sometimes they crop up in different places, in different years.” Nigel said. “It can be a real challenge to get on top of an issue like that.
"If you identify it, and try to do something about it, maybe it’s digging a hole, putting a barrel in and a sump pump to take away the flow of water before it enters a tank, or possibly doing a big job to excavate an area around a building maybe, to put in a drainage pipe to take that clean water away to a drain, before it gets contaminated with anything else. You can never have enough capacity in a tank, if there’s clean water flowing straight into it,” Nigel said.
Many farmers took the opportunity to empty slurry tanks during the fine September weather, whereas last year, Teagasc research findings indicated that slurry tanks were on average 20% full before winter housing began, due in large part to poor autumn ground conditions.
Nigel said: “Sit down with your adviser, and get an assessment done. Measure the tanks. What stock numbers are you going to have over the winter? Is there a way of getting the stock numbers down, maybe? If you’re tight coming into this winter, there’s not going to be much you can do in terms of building, so are there stock that can be moved off, to reduce your need on that front?
"When we go through figures with farmers and on paper, you’re going to make it stack up. But are you allowing for weather events, a spring like last year? A little bit of a buffer is worth a lot to you”, Nigel said.
He explained the importance of adequate slurry storage, to allow spreading when conditions are optimal. “You could be earning up to €43 a cow more by applying your slurry at the right stage of the year, when the plant is ready to take it up, and when ground conditions allow.
“A 6% dry matter slurry probably has a value of about €26 per 1,000 gallons. So your 2,500- or 3,000-gallon tanker has something in the region of €60 to €70 worth of nutrient in it.”
Even soiled water contains valuable N, P and K. “It may seem very watery stuff, but there’s still €6 per 1,000 gallons in value of nutrients in that,” he said.
Nigel also advised on financial supports for increasing slurry capacity. “TAMS can support investment in slurry storage at a rate of 40% at the moment, 60% for young farmers and women farmers."
He said farmers aren’t quite so aware of accelerated capital allowances. "Depending on your tax bill, there’s potential there to write off any investment you make in slurry storage over a two-year period against your tax, rather than the normal seven years".
“A concrete slatted tank, 14.5-foot slat, at eight foot deep, is probably going to cost you somewhere in the region of €400 per foot of length of tank.
“Sometimes the farmer is going to dig out a tank, and you might say ‘would you think of going with the wider slat, go the 16.5 instead of the 14.5. There’s very little extra cost, for a lot of extra capacity,“ Nigel said.
The permitted period for slurry spreading ended on September 30 and will re-open in mid-January.
