Andrew and Linda Whiting run dairy cows on their 300 acre dryland farm at Simpson in the Western District of Victoria.
Since 2010, they have substituted most of their inorganic inputs with compost. The compost system uses dairy effluent, wood chips and sometimes chook manure and they use service providers to �turn� the compost rows and to spread the compost onto paddocks. Andrew and Linda decided that it was beneficial to invest in promoting better root development in pasture and build the humus in the soil.
Since applying compost, they have:
- Reduced pasture resowing
- Saved $80,000 to $100,000 annually in synthetic pasture costs
- Reduced inorganic nitrogen use by more than half
- Increased number of cows that are milked
- Turned waste materials into a valuable resource
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