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VERSATILE, DURABLE, EFFECTIVE
Unit developed in Central Texas proves how much a spreader can restore damaged training lands and improve rangeland health on this 260,000 acre reservation.
IF "necessity is the mother of invention," then the Pilot Revegetation Project at Ft. Hood in Central Texas gave birth to what might be considered the "immortal compost spreader." From 2003 to present, the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI), Blackland Research and Extension Center (BREC), and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) have been partnering with the U.S. military in a consorted effort to restore damaged training lands and improve rangeland health on this 260,000-acre reservation.
The project was awarded the Governor's highest environmental citation in the Agriculture Division given by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for 2006. It was born of a two-fold need to remove composted dairy waste from an ecosystem containing too much elemental N and P and transferring that excess to an ecosystem needing additional fertility. Restoration posed a logistical challenge in distributing a composted dairy waste onto the rugged military training lands.
It became quickly apparent that a standard agricultural distributor would not withstand the punishing terrain of the training grounds of Ft. Hood. So what began as sketches on a napkin from conversations between Drs. Bill Fox and myself at TWRI moved forward into plans and specifications with Ricky Lloyd at High Roller Manufacturing in Bryan, Texas, to design and construct a very special compost spreader.
The designers elected to build a 10-cubic yard capacity tongue-pull prototype to operate from a 3-point hitch. Tractor horsepower was arbitrarily set in the 100-hp neighborhood, mostly for height and visibility needed to view craters and...