Starting in 2002, when the farm built those headquarters, the Hissong family implemented a system of extracting water from the manure generated by roughly 1,500 cows, saving money and also reducing the farm’s carbon footprint. Mercer Vu’s fields are up to 16 miles from the headquarters and milking parlor of the dairy, Hissong explained, and hauling heavy liquid manure is expensive compared to lightweight dry fertilizer. “We used to haul liquid up here four times a year, now we only do liquid one time a year,” Hissong said. Soon, a low growl joined the sound of his idling truck and a tractor appeared with a tank of liquid manure to spread as fertilizer across a field of recently cut corn stalks. He wanted to show me what has become a rare event. One day, about halfway through that period, he stopped his pickup truck at the top of a hill overlooking some of the 1,500 acres of Franklin County his family owns as part of Mercer Vu Farms. Harvest season last fall was almost two months of 14-hour work days for Pennsylvania farmer Rick Hissong.
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