New ventilation tool available for manure pit designers</

May 26, 2016

Online tool can help create safer environments

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Farmers planning on having manure storage pits constructed may benefit from pointing builders and engineers to a new online tool that can help create safer environments.

The Confined-Space Manure Ventilation Design Tool was created by researchers at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and is designed to help engineers, farmers and safety authorities determine how long a confined manure storage space needs to be ventilated for to remove toxic and asphyxiating gases.

Many storage pits contain hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia, and some statistics show as many as 10 people die annually in North American animal-manure pits.

Penn State tool

After users enter barn design, dimensions, manure storage size and ventilation configuration into the online tool, it generates customized information about the concentrations of any toxic gases.

The online tool is the end result of decade-long research by members of different organizations including Penn State’s Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering; they say the tool is made for users of all levels.

"You don't have to be a computational fluid design or computer assisted design expert to use the online design tool. Results include contaminant gas decay curves, real-time animations of gas decay and ventilation time required to reduce contaminate gas and replenish oxygen to acceptable levels for human entry," said Dan Hofstetter, a research assistant in agricultural and biological engineering who helped develop parts of the online tool.

Video: A chain harrow is a game changer

Utilizing a rotational grazing method on our farmstead with our sheep helps to let the pasture/paddocks rest. We also just invested in a chain harrow to allow us to drag the paddocks our sheep just left to break up and spread their manure around, dethatch thicker grass areas, and to rough up bare dirt areas to all for a better seed to soil contact if we overseed that paddock. This was our first time really using the chain harrow besides initially testing it out. We are very impressed with the work it did and how and area that was majority dirt, could be roughed up before reseeding.

Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.