Working more efficiently with Polem fertilizer silo

Cees Ruijter, dairy farmer in Warmenhuizen, North Holland, invested in a new Polem fertilizer silo a year and a half ago. “We have been working with this fertilizer silo for two seasons now and it works efficiently: filling is faster, the fertilizer spreader fits well under it and the storage of fertilizer is fine,” says Cees Ruijter.

Cees (38), together with his wife and his parents, keeps 170 dairy cows to produce dairy for Beemster cheese, among other things. They farm 110 hectares of land, mainly grassland. From early March until September, the dairy farmer spreads fertilizer on the grassland. For two years, he has been spreading the fertilizer with a Vicon precision spreader. “The new spreader with GPS spreads more precisely. For example, in a sloping field, it automatically spreads narrower so there is no overlap. Better for the environment and for my wallet. However, this spreader is wider than the previous one and did not fit under the old fertilizer silo.”

Easy filling

Ruijter has now been using the new Polem fertilizer silo with a capacity of 25 cubic meters, good for 27 tons of fertilizer, for two seasons. It is a hopper silo for storing granular fertilizer on a bridge structure. “The old silo was worn out and those legs were sloping. The fertilizer spreader didn't fit straight under it so filling it was more difficult.

We filled bigbags with fertilizer to put in the spreader or got the bigbags delivered through the supplier. That took five minutes per bigbag and resulted in a messy yard and a lot of waste. The new silo has straight legs. I drive the fertilizer spreader under it and in half a minute it's filled with two tons of fertilizer.” The new silo has a widening piece so the fertilizer spreader is filled evenly and manual labor is not required.

Good winter storage

The Ruijter family's farm is close to the coast. “The humidity is higher here. The fertilizer stored in the silo during the winter runs well out of the silo in the spring. I am very satisfied with it. If you look at the purchase value of the silo compared to the cost of the fertilizer, the investment is not too bad.” Previously, Cees Ruijter also bought fertilizer on pre-sale and had it stored at the supplier. “Now we can store it in the silo in our own yard. This allows us to buy fertilizer on pre-sale at an attractive price,” Cees Ruijter explains.

Ruijter has not had any maintenance on the silo yet. The fertilizer silo is also suitable for storing animal manure pellets. “Who knows, we might use the silo for that too in the future. The lifespan of these silos is at least 20-25 years. I think it's a good investment,” concludes Cees Ruijter.