THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A MILL MUD AND ASH DELIVERY STRATEGY IN MACKAY

MILL MUD, mud/ash blends and ash have been distributed from mill to farms for many years. In Mackay, the distribution of these products has been undertaken on behalf of Mackay Sugar by haulage contractors. This distribution has been largely an ad hoc arrangement between the miller and the contractor with mills having minimal knowledge of the distribution frequency or truck logistic arrangements. Mackay Sugar deemed it necessary to gain some knowledge and control on mud distribution because (1) mill mud is deemed to be a regulated waste with distribution restrictions imposed upon it, (2) the impending reef regulations surrounding nutrient application will require better record keeping of its distribution, and (3) mud distribution is a significant cost imposed upon the business. This paper describes the processes and applications used by Mackay Sugar to gain knowledge and control on mud distribution, including: an ordering mechanism developed within the AgDat framework; the installation of GPS tracking devices and sensors onto the haulage trucks; applications used to analyse the GPS data and the collation of this data back to mud orders; and generation of invoices and the processing through to cane payment. The processing of GPS data by the AgDat interpolator to map the area within paddocks to which mud has been applied and to calculate the value of the nutrient constituents applied from the mud spreading event is also described.