Recent Articles
Phoenix Palm Tree Debris has a Second Life as Livestock Feed
Monsoon storms can do a number on our trees. After the wind and rain are over, all that damage needs to be cleaned up and hauled away. But after it's picked up out of our yards, palm tree waste has a second life. If you live in Phoenix, there's a good chance it will be turned into food for livestock. At a specially designated lot within the City of Phoenix waste transfer station on 27th Avenue sits rows and rows of palm fronds. The piles are stacked so high it takes heavy equipment to move it around.
In the past, all of this would have been sent to the landfill. (Read the full article here).
He’s Turning Palm Fronds Into Tasty Livestock Feed
Jim Parks has hijacked 2 waste products on the way to the landfill and turned them into tasty treats for livestock. Palm fronds and lesser quality dates had no market until he ground them up, pelleted them and started selling them under the Palm Silage brand.
“We’ve had an amazing response to the pellets and what we call Sweet Date Feed,” says Parks. “Right now we are focusing on the small farmer with a few head up to medium size operations with 30 to 50 cows. Hogs especially love the pellets, but it has been fed to cows, horses, goats, sheep, emus, ostriches and donkeys.” (Read the full article here).
Company Turns Palm Waste Into Animal Food
Palm trees are a major part of our landscape in the valley, but if you own one you know how much of a mess it can be when it's time to trim them up. But now there is a good use for the palms, a way to turn them into food for livestock.
Palm fronds make up 3% of all the trash in our Phoenix landfill. City leaders want to reduce that number, by bringing in a California-based company "Palm Silage." (Read the full article here).
Phoenix Finds Solution for Pesky Palm Fronds
Phoenix recently partnered with a company that grinds fronds to make livestock feed. It's a new idea and one the city anticipates other sunbelt municipalities will explore.
“This is actually a nationwide problem," said Jim Parks, CEO of Palm Silage Inc., the city's new partner. “Nobody knows what to do with palm. We’re basically taking trash and making it into a nutritious feed." (Read the full article here).
Palm hay: Coachella farmer turns fronds into economical livestock feed
Talk about a win-win-win situation. Dead fronds from palm trees are problem materials when it comes to disposal. Although organic in nature, they are hard to grind up and can take 50 years to biodegrade in a landfill.
Jim Parks, chief executive officer of Palm Silage Inc. at Thermal, Calif., decided that if lemonade can be made from lemons then making food from palm fronds also makes sense. (Read the full article here).