Precision Compost

Precision Compost

Precision Compost

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Royal Organic Products began in 2004 as a division of AM Todd Group, a mint oil flavor company. Thad Schutt, President of Royal Organic Products, says they started the organic compost project as a way to handle spent mint hay from the mint industry.

SCHUTT: It kind of snowballed and we found that people really liked the compost we’re doing so we built a business unit around that and started taking on other materials - yard waste, food waste and other agricultural residues.

In 2012 Schutt and his two partners purchased the existing compost business unit from the parent company and began focusing on the development of an efficient, easy to apply pelletized compost material.

SCHUTT: We were approached by a sustainable no-till grain co-op that wanted to use compost in their sustainable practices, but since you can’t till, how do you get compost incorporated into the soil. And that’s where the pelletized materials stem from.

After five years of research, development and field trials Schutt says they were able to engineer the right blend of compost material to make Compell, their pelletized compost product.

SCHUTT: We found several significant things that kind of broke the conventional wisdom on compost in that we can dry it down and maintain the microbiology. We found that different types of compost have different affects on plants, but the most significant thing is that we found that if you put it in with the seed we can dramatically reduce the volume, because we’re only treating the seed zone as opposed to the entire soil profile.

Tomorrow Schutt will talk about the cost benefits of Compell, and the consistent yield increases they are seeing with its use in crops such as wheat, canola, barley, oats and potatoes.

That’s Washington Ag Today.

I’m Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.

 

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