NEW VINEYARD — Farmers need lots of space for their critters, equipment and crops. The Marble Family Farm on Holley Road also needs to store something else that has a very important role in their certified organic enterprise — manure.
A single lactating dairy cow can produce up to 150 pounds of manure in one day, and a beef cow can produce up to 125 pounds of manure a day. In winter and early spring, when they can’t graze, wet manure can create big problems, Richard Marble said.
The Marbles, who keep about 15 head of cattle, have run out of space. Along with raising feed for their herd, they need more room for their produce business.
The plan is to compost the abundant manure that traditionally has been deposited in inconvenient outdoor locations.
Storing manure can be a problem for small farms, so the Marbles talked with Paul Hersey, Franklin County’s district conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The Farmington office is one of 13 field offices in the state, and Hersey’s work takes him from the Canadian border to Jay. Hersey helped them apply for federal assistance to help finance a storage facility to house the cattle and the manure during the winter months.
“Part of our mission is to implement a Farm Bill program called the Environmental Quality Incentives Program,” Hersey said.
The contract for funding the Marble’s project is processed through EQIP’s Transition to Organic Farming Initiative.
Contractors have built a 36- by 65-foot building with seven-foot concrete walls and will pour a concrete floor. Richard Marble said he decided to build a pitched partial roof over the structure to keep the manure dry.
“If you let the manure get wet, about 80 percent of the nutrients leach into the ground,” Marble said. “This whole building will be watertight when it’s done.”
Hersey sought assistance from Candace Benwitz Gilpatric in the Lewiston NRCS office. She surveyed Marble’s site and designed a structure that matched the amount of manure to store. The building will be divided into two sections, separating the cattle from the manure.
Composting the manure with hay means the Marbles will not have to buy fertilizer next spring for their certified organic produce. The waste material also will be isolated from other parts of the farm. The project will provide a significant overall aesthetic improvement and a safer and more sanitary waste management system with this storage facility, Gilpatric said.
“The structure is designed to hold 210 days of manure from sheep and cows, so that’s a total of 6,510 cubic feet,” Gilpatric said. Gilpatric, who has an agricultural engineering degree from the University of Maine at Orono, serves York, Cumberland, Knox, Oxford, Franklin and Sagadahoc Counties. The Minot resident said she enjoys the challenges of her job.
“I get to help people work with and protect our natural resources,” she said. “I also get to apply my math and science knowledge and be outside.”
In the last 22 years, she’s designed logging roads to landings, farm roads, stream bank reinforcements and repairs for storm washouts. All are related to agriculture, and the variety of projects provides nonstop challenge.
“We’ve done 75 designs this year, and 10 of those are in Franklin County,” she said.
She has hosted engineering college student Bethany Moore of Jay as a summer intern. Gilpatric said Moore is developing an enhanced ability to communicate with all sorts of people.
“This is not something they teach you in college engineering classes,” Gilpatric said.
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