Journal of the Society of Agricultural Structures, Japan

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The aim of this study was to demonstrate the enhancement of milk production and its economic effect by adopting a warm water feeding system, which used fermentation heat recovered from a composting facility in winter. On a dairy farm with approximately 100 lactating cows, a monthly repetitive experiment was conducted in winter over two years, alternating between a warm water condition where water warmed up using heat released from fermentation was fed to the lactating herd, and a cold water condition where unheated water was provided. The water was heated from 6.1 ℃ to 22.8 ℃ in the warm water condition via heat exchange using an exhaust system at an average temperature of 47.8 ℃. The warm water condition significantly increased water intake and milk yield by 7.6 % and 3.9 %, respectively, compared with the cold water condition at 7.3 ℃. The amount of fermentation heat used to heat the water was estimated to be the kerosene equivalent of 85 000 yen/month, and the increased income from providing warm water to the lactating herd in winter was approximately 327 000 yen/month for 104 cows. Therefore, we concluded that the warm water feeding system effectively used fermentation heat in dairy farms with approximately 100 lactating cows when it was implemented for more than 3 months a year, generating more revenue than the initial and running costs.

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This study aims to apply an intermittent aeration composting system with time-varying ON/OFF control to a composting facility in operation and demonstrate the composting characteristics such as temperature and moisture content and the effect of reducing blower power consumption. The results showed that the system sustained high-temperature periods of 60 ℃ or more than conventional continuous aeration and simple intermittent aeration methods, leading to a more uniform fermentation of the compost material. The persistence of this high-temperature period resulted in a moisture content reduction comparable to that of continuous aeration, contributing to the drying of the compost. Furthermore, the power consumption of the blower with this system was reduced by 81 % compared to continuous aeration and by 60 % compared to simple intermittent aeration. The practical advantages of these time-varying intermittent aeration systems are sufficiently high compared to conventional aeration methods.

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