Making Money With Manure - 1

Manure Happens: How to Use it to Your Advantage

Russ Quinn
By  Russ Quinn , DTN Staff Reporter
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Different types of manure contain varying nutrient concentrations. This makes managing manure a challenge. (Chart courtesy of Jose Hernandez, University of Minnesota)

OMAHA (DTN) -- For thousands of years, farmers used livestock manure as a beneficial crop nutrient. Even with modern agriculture methods, manure can be an effective fertilizer option with several advantages over commercial fertilizer, but it takes some additional effort and time.

Manure has all the nutrients required for plant growth, including nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) as well as micronutrients, said Jose Hernandez, an extension educator in the Livestock Nutrient Management area of the University of Minnesota.

"When properly applied, manure is a great resource for crop producers," Hernandez told DTN. "It can be a soil amendment that provides nutrients and improves soil tilth due to the organic matter."

Manure's nutrient availability is higher than chemical fertilizers in most cases, and it also has more rapid nutrient release. Manure can be looked at as a long-term investment because of the P, K and organic matter applications, he said.

The cost of the manure is pretty economical, especially for people who have livestock, and it can do so much more than commercial fertilizer, according to DTN Contributing Agronomist Dan Davidson. "Manure will not only feed the plants with the nutrient they need, but it helps to feed the soil also."

In addition to nutrients, manure contains carbon. This provides the energy source for the soil microbial environment, and more microbial activity increases organic matter in the soil, Davidson explained.

Maria Cox is a crop and cattle farmer from White Hall, Illinois. With her father Ethan, she will use cattle manure cleaned from their feedlot pens as crop nutrients. Depending on the weather, they spread manure in late winter or early spring.

The manure will cover about 10% of their farm's total acreage, Cox said. This may not seem like much, but she figures the manure saves $100 per acre in commercial fertilizer they won't need to purchase for their crops.

Another distinct advantage of using cattle manure as a crop nutrient shows up in yield.

"Where we do spread manure in a field, you can see a difference in yield right up to the line where we stop," Cox told DTN. "Last year, the soybeans where we spread manure yielded up to 15 bushels per acre (higher) compared to where we didn't spread."

Research backs this up. Field research has shown an application of hog liquid and dairy liquid manure gives an average of 7% to 10% increase in corn yields above what could be obtained with optimum applications of nitrogen fertilizer, Hernandez said.

While there have been environmental concerns in some places about using manure, Cox points out manure is the original green product. So much of society today wants to recycle and reuse products, she said, adding that manure is not manmade, and has many benefits in crop production that commercial fertilizer cannot provide.

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MORE MANAGEMENT, TIME NEEDED

Farmers considering using manure as a crop nutrient also need to look at its disadvantages.

More management is needed when applying manure. Hernandez said manure is a "compound fertilizer." If farmers try to meet their crop requirements for N with manure, they tend to over-apply P and K. If they attempted to apply manure to meet their P needs in crops, they would need to add more N in spring.

Jamin Ringger, a crop and hog farmer from Gridley, Illinois, has about 500 sows on his central Illinois farm. He spreads about 1.5 million gallons of liquid hog manure every fall -- approximately 4,500 to 5,000 gallons of liquid hog manure per acre -- and rotates the fields annually. While he covers 25% to 30% of acres every year with manure, P and K levels provide enough nutrients for two growing seasons; thus, closer to half his acres are benefitting from manure application.

NUTRIENTS DIFFER IN TYPES OF MANURE

One of the challenges when applying manure to crops is different manure sources mean varying nutrient levels.

For example, not all hog manure is the same. Sows have a higher water intake, while finishing hogs are fed different rations. This affects nutrients in their manure.

"We have our manure tested every fall," Ringger said. "The finishing manure is better than sow manure."

The fields that have finishing hog manure applied usually do not need any commercial N fertilizer, because of the higher level of nitrogen in the manure, Ringger said. He does a nitrate test in the spring on the fields where sow manure is spread and adds a side-dressing of commercial N fertilizer if needed.

"Nitrogen is variable at times in manure. You certainly do more testing using manure than commercial fertilizer," Ringger said.

OTHER ISSUES

Another issue with manure for pork producers is the porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus. The virus is transmitted via the fecal-oral route, so manure management is an important part of biosecurity for pork producers to limit the spread of the disease.

Wanda and Chuck Patsche grow crops and raise 4,400 hogs a year in a wean-to-finish operation near Welcome, Minnesota. Wanda said the threat of the virus is very real. The couple has increased biosecurity practices on their farm and managed to avoid the disease.

"We have a heightened sense of awareness which includes making sure our manure equipment is clean," she said. She explained when they go to the feed store, the store's employees load the truck "so we don't have to go inside" and this eliminates "picking up the disease on our shoes from other producers."

Other things to be considered include the increased amount of machinery and manpower needed to apply manure compared to commercial fertilizer. Applying manure is slower and there might be compaction issues with more trips across the field with a loaded manure spreader.

Cox said when they recently cleaned feedlot pens, they had three people working with three tractors (one with a loader) and two manure spreaders. It took several days to complete this chore, she said.

Manure availability can be another issue if a farmer does not have livestock and still wants to use manure as a nutrient, especially if there isn't much livestock in a region, Davidson said.

Prospective buyers need to figure out the cost of the manure and its nutrient content before deciding if it's worth investing in it for their crops.

Perhaps the most obvious disadvantage of manure is the smell.

Ron Nixon is byproducts supervisor for M.G. Walbaum Company (formerly Michaels Foods), a Wakefield, Nebraska, egg-laying operation. He markets 400 tons of raw manure a day produced by the company's 1.8 million laying hens. The company sells the poultry manure across northeastern Nebraska and most of the Midwest, both in fresh manure form and also in a dry form after it is heated to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit to eliminate pathogens.

Applying manure to farm fields has many benefits, but with these positives comes one big negative, according to Nixon.

"When you apply manure, you could be making some of your neighbors unhappy with the odor," he said.

Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@dtn.com

(ES/AG/CZ)

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Russ Quinn