Country Life: Farmers bitten by the bokashi bug turn waste into natural fertiliser

Farm owner Tim Hawke and current leaseholder Murray Weaver are into bokashi on a big scale.

As well as being a soil superfood, it's also cost effective, Hawke told Country Life.

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"I did my homework a few years ago and it costs me $26 a tonne to get it spread on the paddock ... so it's on a par to solid fertilisers but the benefits are amazing."

Last year, they made 120 tonnes from locally sourced agricultural by-products like chook manure, pig manure, sawdust and milk powder sweepings, which add nitrogen and protein to the mix and feed the microorganisms.

"We put it over 40-odd hectares. You can't see anything overnight but over time it certainly improves growth and the stock are healthier."

When available, other raw materials are mixed in too. One batch contained 30 tonnes of apples, rotten bales of baleage and worthless daggy wool.

The farmers have learnt to be fussy, though, about what they source. Lawn clippings from residential areas are a no-go.

"People use sprays in their gardens and they don't break down, an example is Versatill, it has a long withholding period and that's something that would kill a lot of our clovers and things if we're putting it out."

A huge pile of bokashi sits in the corner of a paddock, waiting to be spread. It's chocolate brown and teeming with worms.

"The very first one I did was just a layer of chicken manure and a layer of straw and a layer of chicken manure and a layer of straw. I only had little patches of good spots and now, it's like soil when it comes out."

The bokashi was mixed and covered six months ago and is ready for spreading. Hawke said there had been virtually no material loss during the fermentation process.

"You put 100 tonne down and we get 100 tonne of good material back."

Hawke said local farmers were a bit skeptical when he first started experimenting with this method that uses EM, or Effective Microorganisms, that process the organic matter and break it down.

"But I was looking at the scientific side of it, the results were there if you look and you know, eventually, my scanning percentage on the ewes increased from about 160 up to 200 percent."

Weaver, who farms 1200 sheep and 150 dairy heifers on the property, reckons it's more drought resilient now too, as grass roots tend to grow much deeper in paddocks after being fertilised with bokashi.

"We get a lot of people come past here going 'why is your place so green?'"

Learn more:

• You can learn more about bokashi here.