Farm Dairy Effluent (FDE)
IntroductionThe management of Farm Dairy Effluent (FDE) has received much attention and scrutiny in recent times. This has partly been due to concerns with the levels of non-compliance with regional council regulations and with the contamination risk that FDE poses to surface and ground water when treatment systems are poorly managed. As a consequence, much effort has gone into studying how the design and management of land treatment systems can be improved to maximise the productive re-use of FDE nutrients on farm, while minimising the losses to the wider environment. The importance of landscape, soil and climatic factors to the effectiveness of FDE land treatment systems is now well understood. |
Professional Development Course - Farm Dairy Effluent: System Design and Management
FLRC, in conjunction with DairyNZ, have developed a Professional Development Course for industry practitioners which is intended to compliment the experience gained in the workplace, knowledge gained from other forms of training and the guidelines offered in publications such as the DairyNZ publication 'FDE Design Standards and Code of Practice'.
Further information about the FLRC Professional Development Course.
Dairy Effluent Storage CalculatorThe 'Dairy Effluent Storage Calculator' (DESC) has been developed to account for the impact of factors affecting the quantity of storage required on a dairy farm to successfully practice FDE irrigation. The Calculator uses climate data to simulate the fluctuations in pond volume on a daily basis for the past thirty years. For each year it identifies the maximum quantity of FDE in the pond and hence the maximum storage capacity required to practice deferred irrigation that year; this value varies from year to year depending on climate. As an output, the Calculator states the maximum storage required over the thirty-year period. If the farm currently has ponds, this storage capacity is compared with the required value as predicted by the Calculator. |
For a free copy of the Dairy Effluent Storage Calculator
Other useful links
For a link to the FDE information on the DairyNZ website.