Increasing Dairy Farm Productivity Through Stormwater Harvesting, Resource Recovery and Recycling. Progress Report 1: Selection and Preparation of Sites

This report documents the progress of the Increasing Dairy Farm Productivity Through Stormwater Harvesting, Resource Recovery and Recycling research project over the period between the project's commencement on 20 November 2014 to 31 March 2015. It is the first of a series of three progress reports scheduled over the life of the project. The project has been initiated to trial a new approach to managing effluent and runoff from dairy sheds in a conventional two-pond treatment and storage system that is designed to improve handling of manure solids and control salt levels in recycled effluent, and in the process increase nutrient recovery rates. It involves retrofitting an existing pond system to enable the distribution to land of mixed pond sludge and effluent (slurry) from the primary pond via irrigation, and the harvesting of stormwater runoff in the secondary pond. The overall aim is to achieve greater farm productivity while protecting catchment water quality. The performance of the retrofit system is to be gauged through monitoring flows and constituents of fresh water, effluent, runoff, and sludge entering, within and leaving the ponds. Outputs of nutrients and pathogens to land are to be compared against outputs from a 'control' system" a two-pond system incorporating effluent recycling on a comparable dairy farm.