After four years of experimenting with composting on his dairy farm near Waunakee, Jeff Endres believes “there’s a lot of upside to composting that we don’t know about yet.”

He told a large tour of attendees from the North American Manure Expo in nearby Arlington that the fertilizer value and bedding potential of compost are already apparent on his family’s Endres Berryridge Farm, operated with brothers Randy and Steve, but he is still learning about the energizing effect compost has on the soil.

One hint of that aspect of compost use is that his alfalfa acres that have been fertilized with compost for two years have out-yielded all other alfalfa fields. “It’s enough to notice,” he said. “That told me this isn’t hurting me. There’s something to it.”

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