A Central Victorian contractor and ALLU buckets are giving nature a helping hand to create compost and healthier soils.
To the right is a ramshackle pile of, well let’s be blunt, manure. Straight from the farm, it’s mixed with straw, dirt, and all manner of contaminants. And a little unpleasant on the nose.
Just a few metres away is a mound of compost. A dark earthy brown in colour, it’s rich and moist to touch and smells natural.
It’s difficult to believe that just weeks ago, both piles looked the same. Even a seasoned farmer such as Gino is impressed by the result.
“It looks a picture,” Gino says. “The quality of the product is amazing once you send it through that bucket.”
That bucket, is an ALLU Transformer DN 2-12 screening bucket which, for the past two years, has lived up to its name and transformed Gino’s compost. Through his Natural Compost Co in Central Victoria, Gino is cultivating a move away from synthetic farming and giving nature’s processes a helping hand, working with farmers to convert manure to compost, on site.
Working on farm means there are contaminants in the compost piles – stones, string and steel are the usual culprits. Early attempts to run the piles through a hired trommel proved expensive and often difficult to organise.
Gino even bought a shaker bucket – “a big bucket with holes in it” – but it wasn’t up to the job, (he’s since put a metal plate in the bottom of it and is using it as a digger.)
A bit of research led him to ALLU buckets and, as the saying goes, the rest is history.
“Sami Rahman, Area Sales Manager for ALLU, called me the next day to talk about the problems I was having and what he thought could do the job,” Gino says. “He got the measurements of what machine I was using, organised a trial on site, and soon after had two buckets on a trailer to Newbridge.”
Gino spent that afternoon “playing’”with the recommended buckets. He says he was so impressed; Sami and Carlo Costanzo, a service technician with Walkers Hammers who commissioned the demonstration buckets, went home that day with just one bucket – Gino was going to rent the other.
The next day he ordered a new bucket with TS 16 axe blades that enable a homogenous end-product.
“The compost fell out of the bottom of the machine like rain,” Gino says. “It looks a picture, all nicely processed and sifted. Any contamination and oversize items – we’ve got it set to 40-millimetres – are left sitting in the bucket.
“It’s magnificent.”
The ALLU Transformer D-Series bucket is compatible with excavators, loaders, and other earth-moving machinery. It’s designed to screen and separate various materials including soil, sand, gravel, compost, and demolition waste on site, reducing the need for extra equipment and transport costs and minimising environmental impact.
Carlo provided support with installation of the new bucket and operator training, a service Walkers Hammers offers to all Victorian businesses that purchase ALLU products.
Gino uses the bucket on two excavators. To make switching the bucket between the machines easy, ALLU built a head bracket to cater for the two different pin sizes and spaces. He says it makes what is already a productive machine, more so.
Last year Gino was contracted to process about 5000 tonnes of compost for farmers. He’s currently working with a wastewater facility to convert sludge removed from a dam several years ago into compost that can be used on site. He says since buying the Transformer bucket in 2021 his clients also are noticing the difference in the quality of compost produced.
He cites a local farmer who in 2022 had three rows of compost on his farm, one of which was processed through the ALLU bucket. When Gino returned recently to consolidate the rows, the farmer singled out the ALLU processed row.
“The other two rows, they were good,” Gino says. “But that row that was sifted was like sand. From a quality perspective, running it through that bucket made a difference.
“Nature will get it there, but the bucket helps me get it there quicker.”
For more information, visit:
www.attachmentspecialists.com.au/allu or www.allu.net
