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Land Use and Manure
We all know that our land resource base is finite. No matter what, Iowa is only going to have an area of 55,857 square miles (or just under 36 million acres); of this, about 26.2 million acres, or...
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Manure Analysis - As Is versus Dry Basis, what does it mean, and which one to...
I received a question the other day about poultry litter and the variability of the manure samples they were collecting over the last few years. There are lots of things that can cause variability in...
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Why is human waste treated and discharged and animal manure stored and land...
As you can tell from the title, I've branched out and decided to hit a topic that is a bit different than some of the others we’ve touched on. What I’m going to discuss is why we handle human waste and...
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Big Data, Precision Agriculture, and Manure
This last week I had the pleasure of attending the AgStar Technoledge Conference in Minneapolis. The conference was filled with lots of good talks about how to incorporate new, innovative technologies...
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Does better nutrient conservation pay? The story of injection and incorporation
A common question we ask is how much should be willing to pay for conservation, but every now and then the stars align and initiating a conservation practice at your farm makes you money. One example I...
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Preparing your barns for spring and summer
Spring is one of my favorite times of year; I enjoy seeing the world turn green with signs of new life, crops in the field, young livestock out on pasture, and the hope a new growing season provides....
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Finishing up does better nutrient conservation pay? The incorporation part of...
The recent post on nutrient conservation was supposed to be an evaluation of why we often inject or incorporate our manure, but I only really got injection covered. So I thought this week I’d try to do...
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How do you determine N, P, & K needs for your farm?
This may seem like a very basic question, and you are probably thinking I've been doing this for years, I think I have this part of the equation figured out (or perhaps the more you've learned the...
View ArticleThinking about animal production and sustainability
Last week I had the opportunity to give some freshman agricultural engineering students a tour of a beef feedlot near Ames. I enjoy doing this as I often get lots of interesting questions and...
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Bigger Pigs: More Manure and Impact on Facility Design
I was sent a question today that asked “why are more swine farmers hauling in spring and fall, why is this occurring, and what is a good number to use for sizing your manure storage?” So a nice...
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Manure chemistry: What’s happening to my phosphorus
What happens to manure from the time it is excreted until it is land applied? Well, that’s simple right, we put it in some sort of storage (a pit, a lagoon, a Slurrystore, a concrete or earthen basin,...
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Nutrient Management Spotlight - The Late Spring Nitrate Test
Don't feel neglected, the latest Manure Scoop has arrived. Hope everyone is having a successful planting season; may the leaves be green and your soils fertile (from that wonderful manure).As you might...
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Bigger Pigs, More Manure – A Follow-up
On April 23rd I posted a blog entry called “Bigger Pigs: More Manure and Impact on Facility Design.” Though they didn’t all get shared on the post (note there are like zero comments there), but I did...
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How much biogas production potential is there in Iowa?
Are you interested in the potential anaerobic digestion holds in the state of Iowa? A new, easy to use tool, the Iowa Biomass Asset Mapping Tool (IBAM), may be just what you are looking for (available...
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Carbon - where does the carbon we feed a pig end up?
Wow, June is flying by, already the 19th and I've failed to get a blog article posted so far this month. However, it wasn't for lack of interesting questions coming in. I've had a few, but the one I'm...
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Maintaining Your Manure Storage
Summer is here and its time to check over your manure storage and make sure it will keep your manure where it should, that you'll have to flexibility to manage your manure like the fertilizer resource...
View ArticleManure: a complete, but not balanced fertilizer
We all know that manures can serve as valuable soil amendments due to its potential to improve soil quality and tilth while proving nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, and numerous other plant...
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Hydrogen Sulfide and Manure Safety
In the last month, we've had two tragic accidents related to manure and repairs in a barn. In both cases, a father and son were working on some repairs in the barn near the manure. One of the two...
View ArticleThe Scoop on (Cow) Poop
I saw this video and had to share. It is well made and does a nice job illustrating the manure management side of farming.
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Can application of sand laden manure impact soil texture?
Soil texture and soil structure are properties of a soil that have major effects on a soils behavior, influencing important properties like the soil’s water holding capacity, its ability to retain and...
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