SABINA, Ohio – What started as a 4-H project for Ken Gerber’s grandchildren ended up as a manure composting endeavor. The kids wanted cows for 4-H projects. When his grandson outgrew 4-H and wanted to work on the farm, Gerber decided to expand the cow herd and raise hay.

“I built a barn in 2017-2018 to confine the cows,” Gerber said. “We started baling cornstalks from the neighbors to bed with and now the problem is all I got is hay and I can’t put the manure back on the hay ground because the cornstalks are in there. That led to a problem with too much manure and no place to put it, so I decided we needed to compost it.”

Gerber and his grandson, Cameron Alexander, went to a seminar in Missouri and learned how to do it correctly, he said. Last summer was their first attempt and it turned out well.

“I know there is more than just the dollar value of the fertilizer compost, that’s only a third of it,” he said. “One-third is the dramatic increase of microbial activity in the soil. The increase in organic material and humus content adds another third.”

They have a “recipe” for successful manure composting. The manure provides nitrogen, they put cornstalks, straw, and hay in with the manure to supply carbon. They have to get the ratio right so it will decompose.

To comply with EPA restrictions, Gerber first built a clay pad with a 2-percent slope to it. When the manure/compost windrows are in place the water runs down the length of it rather than under the windrows.

“Then we have 300 yards of grass waterway before it gets to any open ditch so we can soak up any leachate or anything that washes out of the manure,” he said. “We don’t get anything to run out of this manure after we start composting it unless we get a 5- or 6-inch rain. A big rain will get you in trouble sometime; it will get too wet and I’ll have to go out and turn it with a loader.”

To make a windrow they put down 20 bales of cornstalks or straw and spread it out. Next, they dumped three feet of manure on top of that with the loader. Then they added another layer of cornstalks or old hay in the middle.

“I even put some additional chicken manure and we have access to horse manure so I put that on top,” Gerber said. “Next, I put some minerals with it for trace minerals. We buy volcanic basalt rock dust and we added that and we put about 8- to 10-percent dry soil in it as well. Then we keep turning it and aerating it so it goes from a pile of manure to a dark brown, crumbly compost that looks and smells like potting soil.”

They monitor the temperature and moisture. They try to keep the moisture at about 50 percent. They want the temperature to get to 131 degrees for at least a week or two because that kills all the pathogens and the undesirable weed seeds. But it can’t go above about 160 degrees. That would kill the good bacteria.

“We have a machine (a compost windrow turner) we turn it with whenever the heat gets up, every day or every other day in the beginning,” Gerber said. “We have a tank we pull so we can spray water on it when we’re turning it if it gets too dry. We monitor that every day for, in this case, about nine weeks on what we made last summer.”

They added lime and gypsum to the compost and then spread it right onto the fields. They will continue doing that until they have as much as they need on the fields. Then they will see if there is a market for the compost at garden centers.

Gerber does the composting in partnership with his daughter, Melissa Alexander, her husband Tim, their son Cameron, and Melissa’s daughter Kayla Jones. They also have a crop insurance business.

“We all work together in this process and when it’s time to bale everybody goes into the field,” Gerber said. “My great grandson Johnny Jones is 3 years old and he’s helping too.”