by Gwenyth Laird Pernie
  Composting can play an important role in disposing of waste and at the same time produce a high quality, marketable fertilizer. About 20 years ago Charles T. (Tom) Creech, owner of Charles T. Creech Incorporated and Creech Services Incorporated, both of Lexington, KY, capitalized on this concept when he investigated profitable options for disposing of used horse bedding (muck). Muck, which is typically 99 percent damp straw or wood chips and one percent manure, is a problem in the Lexington Blue Grass Region of Kentucky, home to 450 working horse farms. Muck is a problem because it attracts flies, has a foul odor and leaches nutrients that can contaminate ground and surface water. Creech determined that the muck could either be recycled and sold to mushroom farms or it could be composted and sold to high end landscapers and organic vegetable farmers. Today, Creech trucks collect 70,000-tons of muck annually from the horse farms and transports it either to a Creech recycling/baling plant or to a composting facility.
  The Recycling/Bailing Facility
  At the recycling plant, muck is placed in a feeder box where it is run up a conveyor and into a SRB Harris recycling baler. The baler produces a 1-ton, 4-foot X 4-foot X 5-foot bale. The bales are loaded onto flatbed trailers and shipped to mushroom farms. There, they are cut and spread out to compost for use in growing mushrooms.
  The remaining loose muck is either shipped in walking floor trailers to a mushroom farm in Tennessee (about 30 loads a week) or sent to a local farm where it is dried, ranked into windrows and then re-baled into small square bales that is sold for highway reclamation use. The dried muck saves contractors about $20 a ton versus using plain straw.
  The Compost Facility
  The Creech composting facility is located on 27 acres at the edge of the county about 15 miles from the bailing plant. They compost on a 1250-foot X 700-foot (20 acre), 6-inch thick concrete pad that has a one percent grade, which allows water to run off. Composting on concrete reduces contamination and water retention; also the equipment can move more effectively than if the facility were built on dirt.
  Because composting is a biological process carried out under controlled aerobic conditions (requires oxygen) where microorganisms convert organic materials, such as muck, into finely divided organic fertilizer called compost, the composting microorganisms require a proper balance of oxygen, water, nitrogen and carbon in order to convert the raw material into finished compost. At the same time, water, heat and carbon dioxide are released in the process. According to Creech, the quality of the finished compost is greatly dependent on an even distribution of these ingredients throughout the windrows. Therefore,  regular turning of the windrows is required during the composting process. 
  Creech said, “In November of 2000, we purchased a Frontier F-20 windrow turner, to mix the windows. The F-20, manufactured by Frontier Industrial Corp. was purchased for three reasons. It has a patented drum and paddle Turbo-Rator assembly, it is made with the belt drum drive design and it has the easy to use trailering system.”
  On the F-20, the drum and paddle system moves 15-cubic-feet of air for each cubic foot of material it turns and it cross mixes the material by throwing it from the inside to the outside and from the outside to the inside of the windrows. This assures that the carbon dioxide is blown out and new oxygen is drawn in. In this way, the nutrients and microorganisms are mixed throughout the windows. In addition, the paddles have cutting edges that cut the material down to minus 2-inches during the turning process.
  Creech determined that the belt drum drive design of the F-20 was advantageous over hydraulically driven drums because belt drum systems have better maintenance records. Creech said, “We have operated the F-20 about 4000 hours and have only changed the belts once. In addition, we wanted a unit that was belt driven on both ends of the drum. Frontier accommodated this by installing a power divider that would send the power out to each end of the drum. This adjustment increased the machine’s horse power, which was needed for turning the heavy, wet straw.”
  The third reason Creech choose the F-20 was that it is a self-trailering unit. It can easily be moved on and off roads with no specific permits required. Creech likes that.
  Compost Production
  The first step in composting the muck involves the building of two, 1000-foot windrows, which run side by side along the length of the concrete pad. Next, the F-20 runs through the pile to even and smooth the windrows. After that, they lay out sprinklers that water the windrows. Since composting is dependent on the even distribution of nutrients, oxygen, heat and moisture at the proper levels within the compost pile, the Frontier windrow turner is an excellent choice to guarantee a quality end product. 
  The F-20 mixes the windrows three times a week. In addition, the windrows are moved about every two weeks to insure the compost closest to the concrete, a place where the F-20 can’t reach, is also mixed. “Typically, it takes 12 weeks to produce finished  compost,” he said.
  Creech produces about 35,000-cubic-yards of  compost annually. In order to make that happen, they rely upon other equipment such as a 938 caterpillar loader with a 5-yard roll out bucket, a150 Volvo loader  with a 15-yard bucket that is used to move bulk material around the site and several 466 Royer top soil shredders that are used for shredding the compost down to one half minus. They size the compost to one half minus, with a Powerscreen 725 LL trommel screen and they have an Express Blower truck to spread the mulch. Finally, they use a Peterson Pacific horizontal grinder for grinding wood chips and to transport material to and from their facility, they have eight supply and delivery trucks. 
 According to Creech, they produce two types of compost — thoroughbred and standardbred, neither of which contains yard waste. The thoroughbred compost is produced from straw horse bedding and breaks down 85 percent during the composting process. The standardbred compost is produced from wood based bedding. It breaks down 15 percent.
  Creech said, “Creech compost is organic and our company has five different organic certifications. In addition, our thoroughbred compost is rated in the top one percent of compost produced in the United States. The straw compost is a premium product because it has twice the nutrients as wood based compost. It can hold up to five times its weight in water compared to wood based compost, which holds one to two times its weight in water.”
 For more information on the F-20 and other Frontier products visit www.frontierindustrial.net. For more information on Charles T. Creech incorporated or Creech Services Incorporated visit www.creechhay.com.