This
question came from a rather “new in the business” Mulch Operator. The customer
had a competitor that was a much larger manufacturer and that had much brighter
red mulch. He was unable to compete with his competitor’s red colored mulch, so
his sales were suffering as a result.
I asked many questions of who, what, where and why?
·
What feedstock is being used for the Red Mulch?-
You can only use good clean wood, logs, pallets, slabs to make the Red or Gold
Mulches. You cannot make dark wood light, but you can make light wood dark.
Yard Waste, branches and leaves, can be used to make brown or black colored
mulch.
·
What is your grind process?- Grind twice, pile
the 1st grind and then regrind and color. This is how most producers
manage their mulch.
·
How long do you pile the 1st ground
or the colored Material?- Too much aging, colored or not, will start the
compost process and start darkening material.
·
How much water per yard are you using to color?-
Too much water on the colored mulch will darken material faster than just
having the 1st ground material piled alone.
·
How do you manage your inventory?- Coloring
Brown, Black and all the dark colors ahead of season does not affect the dark
colored materials as much. So inventory them ahead of season, then make the
lighter colors as needed and keep the piles small.
·
What color Red are you using?- There are many
different colors, from Bright Red to Brick Red.
Sometimes, because I have been in the business so long, I
overlook the obvious. I neglected to follow up on the mulch grinding process.
This customer used 1 ½” screens for regrinding to size, but he also used that
same size screen for the 1st grind. What did this do and how do we
fix it?
1.
First, mulch ground that fine then piled will
start heating up and start the compost process quickly, turning your light wood
materials dark. Thus giving you a Brick Red, rather than a Bright Red.
2.
Grind as large as possible on the 1st
pass which will keep a lot of the wood still light, create more airflow through
the pile and reduce the heat
3.
This will reduce the amount of fines created on
the 2nd pass which will allow for less color and water usage when
coloring and limit the compost process from starting in the colored mulch
piles.
4.
This will also increase production on the 1st
pass, reducing costs and will reduce wear in the grinder which will further
reduce costs.
Questions? Dave
Whitelaw Grinderguy@askthegrinderguy.com