Rather than viewing it as a useless by-product of the milking process, Simon Park is re-using effluent expecting to achieve better pasture, better milk production and healthier stock. To this end, Mr Park, a dairyfarmer at Wonthaggi, in south-east Victoria, is making radical changes on his farm.
Mr Park has a history of leading change in efforts to reduce waste on the dairy farm, which has been in his family since 1917.
He milks 320 cows from a self-replacing herd of 600 Friesians, on 280 hectares, including 80ha of leased country for the heifers.
The Wonthaggi district, in south Gippsland, is ideal for dairying, with an average annual rainfall of 935 millimetres, although the average for the past three years has been 761mm.
Mr Park, who has a background in irrigation, faced with increasing costs began to look at how he could reduce his reliance on town water and electricity.
"I was using 20 megalitres of mains water each year, including washing down the dairy, yards and for stock water," he said. "I began looking at the issue of water reliability."
So Mr Park looked at improving the capture of water into an on-farm storage facility. The result is a system that now needs only 25mm of rain to fill.
He was able to convert a drain running through his property into a catchment. "It puts down 100 megalitres a year," he said. "It was just a case of finding a way to tap into it," he said.
Using local contractors, Mr Park cleaned out the drain, built a spillway and installed a pressure pump powered by mains electricity.
The project cost about $20,000, close to the same amount as the previous year's water bill.
"It has cut our mains water usage by 85%," Mr Park said.
"Although the storage system improvements cost $20,000, I'm not paying about $14,000 a year because I'm not using as much town water.
"There've been some salt issues with the water quality that I'm trying to work out but the improved storage system has been a positive investment."
The amount of water the system can capture can be reduced in long, hot summers.
Mr Park has also installed a flood-wash system for the dairy yards and feed-pad using water from his effluent pond.
"I've now got a 12,000-litre flood-wash tank, using water from the effluent pond," he said. "Using three taps off the tank, I can disperse 40,000 litres in 15 seconds. Using recycled water for yard washing significantly reduces the farm's total water use."
Mains water is only used to supplement the on-farm storage.
Mr Park also plans to install a 250,000-litre rainwater tank to harvest water from the dairy and other shed roofs to be used to wash down the plant and platform.
Once this is operational, Mr Park believes he will only need mains water for emergencies.
With issues of low calving rates, a break down in cattle health and a shortened productive life for milking cows as issues to combat in his business, Mr Park has also taken a keen interest on what is going on under his pasture.
This is where his focus on re-using effluent has taken him.
"The more we understand what's going on, in my case in the effluent pond and in the soil, the more we're likely to survive in the dairy industry and in farming," Mr Park said.
"Instead of worrying totally about the stock, my focus is on the soil. We have to be looking at everything on the farm in order to measure and improve the health of the cow.
"I'm trying to set the whole farm up to be self-sustainable and cut down on phosphate and fertilisers brought onto the farm, down to zero.
"I've got a couple of hundred dollars worth of fertiliser in the effluent pond and want to use it. I'm trying to learn, when do I put the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium trace minerals back into the soil and what are the implications of putting it back?
"We buy it by the bag and it's going out the gate in the milk we produce. The soil can't absorb it because all the microbes we need in the soil are dead; so they can't help by grabbing the mineral and processing it as it needs to be done.
"We do soil tests but we also need to be doing plant tissue tests to tell us what is in the leaf."
To this end, Mr Park is working with scientists to measure the effect of re-using effluent on his pasture, including the effect on different grasses.
Currently the dairy farm is sown to ryegrass, but he is aiming to diversify his pasture next year, with scientific advice. "We rely on ryegrass but it's the poorest pasture we have," Mr Park said.
"Over the next 12 months, we're changing to alternate grasses to ryegrass and I've brought in scientific advice to determine, what is the best pasture mix.
"What I've already noticed is the cows prefer to graze in the paddocks where I've spread the effluent."
To encourage microbe activity, Mr Park has installed a propeller in the effluent pond to increase its aerobic capacity. The pond is also currently being increased in size and a floating lid fitted.
At times, he adds seaweed emulsion to the effluent pond, along with sugar, to improve the aerobic and microbe activity.
"The effluent is aerated using the truck but also by using a propeller in the dam," he said. "The propeller stirs the pond and stirs up all the solids in the pond.
"I feed the effluent using enzyme-rich additives and sugar to assist the microbes with breaking down the solids. The whole process is designed to encourage aerobic activity."
The effluent is pumped to a header tank, from where it is siphoned into the spreader tank, where further aerobic activity takes place during the spraying action.
The spreader tank, an eight-wheel-drive ex-Army vehicle, was specially bought by Mr Park for spraying the effluent onto the pasture.
"I retrofitted it with a tank, a pump to push the effluent out, got the engine rebuilt and fitted tyres appropriate to going into the paddocks," he said. "It's got a 40 tonne capacity, so I wanted tyres on it that made sure it could do the job."
The truck allows 100,000 litres of effluent to be moved around the farm in two hours.
"Close to the dairy, I can move 1,000,000 litres on 200 litres of fuel," he said.
"Using the truck doesn't take long to move the effluent. It's one of the best investments I've made."
Although this is only his first year to foliar spray the pasture in this way, Mr Park has already noticed improved soil mineral balance and soil biology.
"Re-using the effluent in this way provides the necessary phosphate and potassium I need," he said.
"I'm only needing to buy in nitrogen. "It only takes 20 to 30 minutes of emulsion time to get into the leaf and roots of plants."
He expects the effluent pond will be working at its optimal level by January 2014.
"I've been doing things as I can, depending on the capital I have available to invest," Mr Park said.