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Plants Need Nutrients From Manure
No
matter whether it comes from the lawn guy, your neighborhood garden
shop or the livestock farmer, plants need nutrients from the soil to
maximize growth and those nutrients are commonly known as fertilizer.
 In
Agronomy class, we learn that nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — N, P
and K — are essential to the development of production of grains like corn
and soybeans.
Generally
speaking, the plant doesn’t care how the
nutrients are delivered, whether it is from a commercially
produced-fertilizer or an animal-based fertilizer. Plants can only
thrive if these nutrients are available each year in order to grow.
Livestock manure, nature's original organic nutrient, is one
of the
best fertilizers farmers can use. Just look at the gardeners who
swear by the bags of manure they purchase each spring from their local
garden shop for their vegetables and flower gardens. And did you
know that manure is the only fertilizer that can be used to grow
organic foods.
Manure...An Asset, Not Liability
Livestock manure is an asset, not a liability. Manure contains life-giving nutrients. And
livestock manure as a natural, organic and sustainable fertilizer saves billions of cubic feet of
natural
gas that would otherwise be used to manufacture commercial
fertilizers. In 2002 -- 7 billion pounds of nitrogen was applied
to farm land in
commercial fertilizer compared to 2 billion pounds of nitrogen from
livestock manure. Source: NASS
Municipalities Can Discharge Sewage Waste, Livestock Farms Do Not
By
law, livestock farms cannot discharge any manure in our nation's
waters. All manure must be contained on the farm. When it is applied to
land as a fertilizer, it must be applied using methods that do not
result in water pollution.
Compare these zero-discharge standards to municipal lagoons, which
handle the sewage produced by millions of Americans every day. Unlike
livestock lagoons, the effluent from municipal lagoons may be
discharged into streams and rivers, even though treatment does not
remove all nutrients. And, many municipal lagoons are located in flood
plains near rivers and are subject to discharge during times of heavy
rain or flooding.
Read IDEM's Weekly Municipality Discharge Report
Dairy Farm Impact on Groundwater Compared To Rural Sub-Division Home
A
dairy farm has a 3-million gallon storage area for manure.
The manure is applied twice per year at a rate of 12,000 gallons per
acre on a farm that has enough farmland to receive this amount every
OTHER year. In the off years the manure is used on a different
farm. The manure application rate is .28 gallon every square foot – applied one day every OTHER year.
An
average three-bedroom home will generate about 360 gallons of waste
water sewage every day. If that home is on a standard septic system, it
will discharge 360 gallons of untreated human waste sewage into a
standard 900-square feet absorption field. That equates to .40 gallon
per square foot EVERY DAY.
When
you consider that most rural sub-division homes on septic also have
their own water well – probably about 100 feet from their septic
absorption field -- water contamination could potentially occur from the septic system.
Consider these facts...
- A pig on average generates between 1.5 - 2 gallons per day with a
system designed to treat 9-11 which is recycled on land as a nutrient
for growing crops and not discharged to any surface water.
-
Very few manure storage lagoons have failed in the United States.
- Lagoons are designed with at least enough capacity to hold rainfall from a 25-year, 24-hour rain event.
- Seepage rates for lagoons are equal to spooning six tablespoons of water on a square foot per day.
- There have been no reported outbreaks of human illness from drinking water contaminated by hog manure.
- New federal regulations clearly address land application of manure and
set new standards to help producers protect water and soil quality. Seepage
rates from clay-lined lagoons are approximately equal to spooning six
tablespoons of water on a square foot per day.
- By the time lagoon seepage filters to underground water supplies, it is clean.
- USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have have found that the microbes
in manure can play an important role in breaking down antibiotics and
other pharmaceuticals excreted by treated livestock.
It's Time To Fertilize The Fields
(Audio script of DVD on how pork producers utilize and apply
manure to fields in the spring and fall to provide plant nutrients.)
Farmer's IDEM Checklist
Take a look at the list of management criteria livestock farmers do to prevent manure from entering the waters of Indiana.
Manure Management Web Sites:
Manure Solutions, Purdue
University
Indiana Manure Locator Network
Manure Value
Bulletins by Iowa Pork Producers
Individual bulletins on:
- Management
- Manure Vs. Fertilizer
- Manure Testing Analysis
- Determining Nutrient Value
- Putting It All Together
- Manure Excels as a Crop Nutrient
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