Totally mixed, effluent holding ponds

The Spitfire Plus concept (Spitfire Irrigator PLUS Deferred Irrigation) eliminates those awful irrigation tasks in the wet and cold of winter and shifts effluent irrigation into the warm of early summer. Storing effluent, and then applying it when the soil is warm and dryer in early summer eliminates all this unpleasant work. It also provides a cushion period for wet spells (when you shouldn't irrigate) or for equipment breakdowns and labour absences. Effluent storage is the essential component in the process called "Deferred Irrigation". It is the vital missing ingredient from most of our dairy farms. It let's you irrigate when the plants need irrigating, so deferred irrigation makes good sense.

The ponds are all circular so that we can stir every corner. (You know what we mean!) Rectangular ponds have dead zones where solids accumulate so that you have to clean them out later with a digger and spread the solids at considerable expense.

Our philosophy is to stir the pond so thoroughly that when you irrigate from it, all the solids and the liquids get out onto the pasture at the same time. This ensures that there are no annual desludging costs, separators, weeping walls, or other left-over jobs. These other tasks are not cheap these days and soak up your time. Solids spreading also leaves a heavily applied, concentrated and unknown amount of manure all over the pasture, which could be a hazard to the environment and tough on the pasture.

Spitfire bridge/mixers span the pond from the centre to the outer embankment. (See  the images, above) They suspend multiple propeller mixers which are always the same, close distance from the bottom of the pond, irrespective of the pond water level - unlike fixed location floating mixers (which hit the bottom at low tide and fail to stir the bottom at high tide) The bridge rotates ensuring that all the mixers get to stir up the entire pond volume leaving no dead, unmixed zones or surface crust. A cutter screen at the central drain point chops oversize particles and screens out the objects that block pumps and irrigator nozzles. The incoming effluent is deposited halfway along the rotating bridge so that it is distributed during the filling process. The ponds are sized to collect yard and pond area rainfall, because rainwater diversion doesn't always get done.

Note that if a liner is fitted to this pond, there is no traffic over the membrane, or desludging and digger activity, both of which can destroy liners. Nothing touches this liner except for liquid and solids.

We have recently introduced a special water recycling feature that allows you to almost halve the water used when you floodwash a yard and which simultaneously reduces the amount of time spent irrigating, because there is less effluent to irrigate.

Ponds are constructed in modular sizes of 1500, 2200, 3000, 3800, 4900 and 6000 cubic metres - Plenty of holding capacity for large or small herds. They have concrete tracks to eliminate carriage wheel ruts; the mixers are removable from the overhead walkway—in case you have to remove “bale wrap” or tree branches. The circular pond is so easy to construct—just install the centre column and use a rope with flag markers on it to get all the other radial dimensions. We arrange for full geotechnical engineering advice on the construction, and can apply  a sprayed-on wave erosion preventer. Both the mixer and carriage use less power than most floating mixers. Only 6.0 kW is needed for the largest pond!

How about sending us some data about your proposed system?  Print our Questionaire

Patent applied for.