By Sonia Howlett, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets
Founded in 1946, L. F. Hurtubise and Sons farm currently crops over 900 acres of grass and 600 acres of corn on the border of Canada in Richford, VT. This year, thanks to their new manure injection spreader with a flow meter, they are injecting manure into ~400 acres of their tilled land. Wayne Hurtubise, one of the owners of this family-managed business, has been very pleased with the new system. “It’s been really good… we really like it” he told me in an interview.
L.F. Hurtubise and Sons purchased the equipment new this spring and were able to see its benefits right off the bat. With the wet spring, they were able to spread manure with the injection system a lot of days they would otherwise not have been able to get on the fields. “That was a big plus,” commented Wayne.
L.F. Hurtubise and Sons are using their injector mounted on the back of their pre-existing manure tank. Although some other farmers in VT are integrating their manure injectors with dragline systems, the Hurtubises opted to keep using their current tanker-spread system which includes a portable frac tank. They move this frac tank to the field(s) they’ll be applying, keep it filled with feeder trucks running back and forth to the manure pit. The frac tank has a PTO-driven pump which keeps bedding sand and manure solids from settling and a separate pump which loads the tractor-pulled tanker with the injection toolbar. This system saves time, limits the amount of mud and manure that trucks track onto roads and , Wayne explained, “the manure injector hardly stops at all.”
The Hurtubise farm includes a lot of river bottom cropland along the Missisquoi and Trout rivers, and in those areas the manure injection system has been particularly helpful. According to Wayne, they used to incorporate manure in those areas, which required tillage both spring and fall. Now, with the manure injection system they’re reducing tillage, Wayne explained, which is good for both the land and water quality, while also getting the maximum benefit from their manure.
The reduced smell from injected manure has also been an unusually important benefit for the Hurtubises. Wayne shared that prior to purchasing their new system, the Hurtubise farm would receive at least one call a year from neighbors when they spread manure. Some neighbors even lodged complaints with the Agency. This year, the Hurtubises haven’t gotten a single call from neighbors. “It really reduces the smell…and if you put it in the ground, people don’t see it getting spread into the air,” Wayne commented. “It creates a good perception with the neighbors.”
Manure injection systems are “a good investment for the environment, and the people you live near” Wayne concluded. He sees a time when they might be the only way farmers put manure on. Even so, he added, “it’s a hard investment to make without a grant,” noting that manure injection systems often chalk up to over $50,000 dollars. Thankfully for L. F. Hurtubise and Sons, on their second year of applying to the program they were able to secure a 90% cost-share grant through VAAFM’s Capital Equipment Assistance Program (CEAP) in 2019 and only paid $6,000 out of pocket.
If you are interested in learning more about innovative equipment that might work for your operation, talk to your local UVM Extension office, farmer coalition, or equipment dealer. You are also encouraged to contact Nina Gage at VAAFM at (802) 622-4098 for more information on upcoming CEAP grant cycles.
Photo Caption: The Hurtubises’ VTI manure injector in action on a late October day in Montgomery.