Cabot Whey Spreader
Posted by ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit | WeirdWheels | View on Reddit | 27 comments
Here in Vermont cheddar cheese as big business and chief among them is Cabot. They have a big plant 15 or so miles from here and they’ve come up with a creative way to dispose of the whey, the liquid component that is left over in the process of turning milk into cheese.
Every day they fill up a couple of these tankers and send them out to nearby farms where they blast it all over the field.
I was on the opposite side of the field from him so I couldn’t get the best close-up of the truck itself but I thought this was a pretty good picture of what they do.
FunkyChewbacca@reddit
What does the whey do to the plants?
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
It contains calcium and magnesium which is really good for strengthening plants against disease and it act as an organic fungicide.
We have a lot of cool wet weather here in Northern Vermont and molds and funguses are always a problem with any crop that susceptible to it.
person1234man@reddit
That's got to have quite the smell to it on some warm days
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
They only do it in the cold weather months. I've never seen them do it when there's actual crops growing in the field
keedro@reddit
Be thankful you don’t live close to a bunch chicken farms. Its horrible
cat_prophecy@reddit
Dairy farms and feed lots too. They collect all the effluent and then pump it into trucks that spray it on the field. "Slurry" is what it's called and it smells as bad as you think.
There are a ton of farms south of me and if the wind is from that direction in the fall the whole city smells like literal shit.
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
Mostly dairy farms up here. And small ones, not like what’s out in the Midwest. They use a slightly different rig to drain their slurry ponds and spread them on the fields. That’s pretty much all spring and all fall and you sort of get used to the smell of cow manure. It’s not the worst
FridgeFucker17982@reddit
Chicken barns smell way worse than cow patties
DaHick@reddit
Yeah, I get chicken and turkey smell county wide when they spray. Even the county seat of 20,000 smells. Ohio.
The_Shadow-King@reddit
Farms near here use turkey poop for fertilizer, absolutely reeks
Icy-Creme@reddit
So it's a water truck filled with whey
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
Its a whey truck filled with whey.
Icy-Creme@reddit
It's a water truck repurposed
Kevydee@reddit
It's a tanker bro
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
Or maybe water trucks are whey trucks repurposed
SpartanMonkey@reddit
No whey.
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
Whey.
squishee666@reddit
And then, one Thursday, a young girl sitting at a break table at the Cabot cheese factory in Vermont suddenly realized what had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the cheese waste could make this a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one could stand in her whey.
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
Bravo.
colinrichardson@reddit
Way to weigh the way the whey would spray away.
Cthell@reddit
And that's how cheesy tater tots are made
Striking_Reindeer_2k@reddit
I hear "Wayne's World".
Way..
No.. Way...
Now this...
GDogg007@reddit
When I was a kid the local Kraft plant delivered whey to our dairy farm. It’s great for cattle and other animals too.
aitigie@reddit
I'm close to vomiting just imagining the smell. Is it as bad as I'm imagining? Like an old protein shake cup that you forgot in a backpack for a day or two?
ZaphodBeeblebrahx@reddit (OP)
to be honest, it doesn't smell. I've biked past fields in the afternoon that were sprayed in the morning and never noticed any smell.
NuclearWasteland@reddit
Get spread, whey.
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