Farmscape for June 2, 2016

Researchers with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute are preparing to move to the next phase in the application of hydrovac technology to the cleaning of swine transport vehicles.
As part of an effort aimed at automating the washing and disinfection of swine transport trailers to  reduce the risk of spreading swine diseases researchers with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute, working on behalf of Swine Innovation Porc, are exploring the use of hydrovac technology.
The technology which used high pressure water and a vacuum operates much like a carpet cleaner and is typically used to excavate soil from around sensitive underground utilities.
Dr. Hubert Landry, a research scientist with PAMI, says initial tests have demonstrated applying this technology to cleaning swine transport trailers is feasible.

Clip-Dr. Hubert Landry-Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute:
The current practices to clean livestock trailers are very labor intensive.
We were able t clean the floors of a trailer in about 40 minutes using under 150 litres of water which is very promising when compared to, it takes several hours for the laborers to get inside the trailer and clean it out and it also takes a lot of water.
Our tests were in a very controlled environment obviously and we extrapolated those results we measured on a section of trailer but we are still very encouraged by the time requirements and the amount of water we used.
Now it's a matter of pursuing the research, bringing that system to the next level to see if we can work toward the goal of automation.

Dr. laundry notes, in a livestock trailer there's a number of obstacles from the anti-slip pattern in the aluminum floor to ribbing in the floor to gate latches, so the next step will be to develop a cleaning head that will accommodate those different surfaces.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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