On-Farm Aerated Static Pile Composting Fundamentals

2021 WSU Winter Cattleman's School Presentation- Aerated static pile composting refers to any of a number of systems used to biodegrade organic material without physical manipulation during primary composting. An aeration system uses fans to push and/or pull air through the composting mass. Rigid or flexible perforated piping, connected to fans, delivers the air. The pipes can be installed in channels, on top of a floor, or included throughout the pile during buildup. Many advantages of this system for the small acreage livestock manager will be discussed, as well as a presentation of case studies of varying scales.
Presenter: Katie Pencke, Resource Specialist, Whatcom Conservation District
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[@drashokkattimani6046]

Excellent presentation .. thank you so much

[@fincaecologicalapilaricagu5999]

J.M. Director 🇨🇷🇨🇷🇨🇷👍

[@tahirehsan2180]

A point about C/N ratio which you need to check. A kilo of wood chips and a kilo of manure do not have equal ration of Carbon and Nitrogen. If you think logically with this assumption you would actually be composting wood chips rather than any other organic material and taking years to finish a pile while using all the wood chips around you. A kilo or cubic foot of wood chips has 400 times more carbon as compared to Nitrogen in corresponding wt or volume of manure, if manure is considered pure Nitrogen, which it is not and also has some Carbon elements. Therefore, one kg wood chips and one kg manure 1:1 would have a C/N ratio of 400:1. In order to achieve 30:1 ratio, roughly one kg wood chips with 14 kg of manure is required. A suggestion to all pl check this yourself and do not bother so much about ratio, it is very difficult to achieve an exact ratio. Same way other carbon elements added in the mixture also have a higher carbon than the Nitrogen in the greens.

[@vita2200]

Private land is Private, government doesn't need to manage "Public" resources on private land!!

[@brianguichet4047]

What is done on private land does effect everyone, ie runoff as one example, they also manage environmental components In private companies.

[@yiqingzhang581]

How to control smell when you have all kinds of garbage mixed into pile?

[@WhatcomCD]

This video is meant more for the composting process of animal manures, bedding, waste feed and other natural materials. I would not recommend adding garbage to your home compost pile and maybe look to see if your local area has a commercial facility that would accept other products.

[@mianmaqboolhussain7094]

Please consider formulating materials to approach Carbon:Nitrogen CN ratio nearer to 30; smell will be soon finished

[@sergeykuniaev5426]

Good afternoon. Where can you read about this technology? how to maintain temperature. How to calculate the amount of air? Have a book or articles?

[@dennisseeker36]

greetings- thank you very much for all of this info- very help full american in the philippines- perhaps i have one of the first ASP systems in the philippines. i am trying- and learning. it is hard here to find more organic ( herbicide free, carbon source, so i turned to saw dust from wood working shops and chicken manure as well as some moringa and madre de agua,lawn grass etc. think i need a bigger blower or longer on time . right now temps are round 130 F. at this time i run the blower one minute per hour 24 hours a day ( except for when we have black out- which happens all the time here. my first asp is 8 foot by 8 foot. will try to build a longer one soon as saw dust does take a long time . i am very curious about your doing pig manure as i plan to try this in the future. once i learn the system better included in my plans is using the compost to feed composting worms, already have 4 by 16 foot worm bed ( full of African night crawler's) but had to slow down their reproduction rate to get going on composting bedding for them

[@mianmaqboolhussain7094]

Great job, wish you best luck from Pakistan

[@checkyourbrakes]

Is there anywhere that discusses run off in more detail?

[@randalmoroski1184]

Great info! Thanks

[@ianpgeorge]

About the comment @ 47:46 .. including geothermal #1> small piles in winter Larger compost piles generate enough heat to continue to work through the cold winters .. thus no need for geothermal assistance .. smaller compost piles in cold winters might not self generate enough heat , and run the risk of cooling off and going dormant .. digging down a few feet for a short trench to get some geothermal pre-heating of the inlet air can allow even a small pile to continue to function continuously well into very low winter ambient air temperatures .. as far as asking for examples of this .. there are several examples of the use of such geothermal pre-heating of inlet air on smaller piles in the book "The Compost-Powered Water Heater" by Gaelan Brown. #2> Chimney effect for reduced fan in summer. Geothermal cooling of the inlet air in the summer can allow for reducing the amount of energy needed for fans to move the same amount of air in 2 ways .. 1st in the summer the colder geothermal temperatures can create a small thermal syphon pulling warmer ambient air down into the colder geothermal air inlet as that air is cooled by the cooler geothermal temperatures .. 2nd way is , the now cooler than ambient air inlet to pile temperatures also increase the temperature difference between inlet and pile core , there by increasing the chimney effect in the pile itself .. thus ultimately reducing the amount of energy needed by the fans to move the same amount of air inlet into the pile. - - - - - However .. there is no free lunch .. all such geothermal augmented compost air inlet systems have additional excavation costs to be considered for the air inlet being geothermal heated or cooled .. and thus , any potential operating expense savings will have to be weighed against the additional initial expense and any possible maintenance of the additional system.

[@WhatcomCD]

Thank you for this great explanation.

[@stevenwarrener8533]

How much air volume do I need?

[@stevejanes123]

Love this system. I belong to a Community Garden in Australia. We have 5 compost bays. We start off with one and that gets turned into the other bins one after the other. Very work intensive. This system looks much easier. Do you know how long the blower needs to be used each day?

[@WhatcomCD]

Great question. Every system is going to have a different answer because of your pile conditions. If you skip to minute 45 of the video Katie provides an example and some considerations. Thanks.