FAYETTEVILLE -- Christmas may be over, but one University of Arkansas professor still has some wrapping to do.

H.L. Goodwin wants to give farmers gifts that keep on giving: phosphorus, nitrogen and calcium. Toward that goal, he's working to perfect a machine that bales and wraps a proven source of those nutrients -- chicken litter.

The byproduct of Northwest Arkansas' poultry industry is an alternative to commercial fertilizer for pastures and fields. Some people have raised concern that years of litter application in Northwest Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma have resulted in an overabundance of nutrients, particularly phosphorus, running off fields and into waterways.

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has filed suit against several poultry companies over the issue.

Row-crop farmers in eastern Arkansas and western Oklahoma, however, see litter as a way to improve soil that lacks a natural concentration of nutrients.

The question has been how to get the litter from production areas to customers.

Goodwin, a professor of agricultural economics who was raised on a farm in eastern Oklahoma, has been studying the problem for several years. He was part of a team that created a "litter bank," a clearinghouse where poultry growers sell litter to row-crop farmers. The program, managed by Farmington-based BMPs Inc. and subsidized by a federal grant and contributions from poultry companies, arranges to haul litter to customers.

The litter belongs to individual growers, not to poultry companies that contract with the farmers, said Gary Michelson, a spokesman for Tyson Foods. While the grower is responsible for managing and disposing of litter, Tyson is among the companies that contribute to the litter bank, Michelson said.

The major obstacle is ease of transportation and application, Goodwin said.

The litter must be hauled in specialized trailers, and is usually dumped in a pile on the ground until farmers load it into spreader buggies for field application.

It's far more complex than moving other farm staples, such as hay bales.

Knowing that loose, granular litter wouldn't roll up in traditional hay-baling equipment, Goodwin obtained a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to explore other alternatives.

That's where Ross Schlotthauer and his colleagues at Mammoth Corp. of Spokane, Wash., got involved. Mammoth has been in the business of wrapping waste for years as a manufacturer of commercial trash balers. With only minor modifications, Schlotthauer and Goodwin adapted a machine originally designed to compact and wrap household trash.

The machine takes loose trash and dumps it into a 4-foot diameter cylinder, where hydraulic rams on either end of the cylinder press inward, compacting the trash. The compacted bale then drops from the cylinder to a rotating belt system that spins wrapping around the bale.

"It's a totally unique piece of machinery. It spits out what looks like a little round hay bale, covered in what we call 'cocoon wrap,'" Schlotthauer said. "Litter is a looser medium than regular trash, but it works on basically the same principle."

The baler itself is "gargantuan," Goodwin said.

The 100-ton machine traveled on four tractor-trailers from Spokane to Lincoln, where it was assembled in an industrial building. While that machine will serve as the test platform for additional units, it will likely be the first commercial model at some point, Goodwin said.

Some other stats are also plus-sized. The 250-horsepower electric motor powering the baler pulls 180 amps of electricity, and the compaction rams are pushed by 250 gallons of hydraulic fluid. The baler compacts litter to about a quarter of its original size and offers several advantages to loose litter, Goodwin said.

"Farmers don't want litter sitting on their place in a big pile, stinking and leaching nutrients, until they're ready to use it. This eliminates that," Goodwin said. "Plus, you take something that would normally be hauled in a specialty container, and this packaging allows you to haul it on a simple trailer."

As an added bonus, the broiler litter used in prototype bales goes through a process similar to fermentation, breaking the litter into basic organic components, which are better for the soil, Goodwin said.

The economics of moving bales broaden the possible markets for litter, said Sheri Herron, owner of BMPs and manager of the litter bank.

"We're hauling every day, and something like a bale adds to the economic equation of the process because it's easy to load and move," Herron said. "There are a lot of row-crop farmers out in western Oklahoma that can't get enough litter, but they aren't going to buy unless the cost is reasonable."

Each 4-foot by 5-foot bale weighs about a ton, and contains about $50 worth of nutrients, Goodwin said.

Baling and shipping is the best option available to date, Herron said.

"What we provide is an instant solution. Maybe there will eventually be something better out there, but for now, this is working great," Herron said. "The more we can ship, the better off we are, and bales would make that easier."

How many bales? The litter bank in 2006 moved an estimated 90,000 tons of litter out of the Illinois River and Eucha-Spavinaw watersheds alone. Those watersheds cover parts of Benton and Washington counties in Arkansas and Adair and Delaware counties in Oklahoma.

Row-crop farmers generally apply about a ton of litter per acre, meaning demand could be almost unlimited if economic factors make litter the fertilizer of choice, Goodwin said.

"If every ton of poultry litter in the Ozarks was sent down there, it still wouldn't come close to covering the row-crop acreage," he said. "If we make it work economically for the farmers, they'll be screaming for more of it."

In addition to the nutrient value farmers seek when growing corn, wheat, soybeans and other row crops, several sod farmers seek out the litter for the organic matter it adds to the soil.

"The sod farmers take so much matter out of their land that the organic matter the litter provides really rejuvenates their fields. That's really more important to them than the phosphorus or the nitrogen," Herron said.

Goodwin hopes to start churning out bales in January. The first few months will be spent analyzing the operation, he said. Some factors include the speed of the machinery, the proper amount of plastic wrapping, moisture content of the litter and the resulting nutrient loads in each bale, he said.

"We'll be tweaking it so see what works best, where the bottlenecks are and how much we can do," he said. "Hopefully, we'll have everything lined out and ready by about March, when the big time for cleaning out chicken houses hits."

By The Numbers

Average nutrient content of broiler litter in pounds per ton

Nitrogen -- 60

Phosphorus -- 66

Potassium -- 55

Calcium -- 41

Nutrient value of broiler litter in dollars per ton (values as of November)

Nitrogen -- $19.80

Phosphorus -- $13.86

Potassium -- $11.66

Calcium -- $2

Total Value/Ton -- $47.32

Source: www.litterlink.com