Treatment, storage, and collection of manure

The Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning Center , a National Facilitation Project of the CSREES National Integrated Water Quality Program, and The National Center for Manure & Animal Waste Management , funded by the USDA Fund for Rural America, are important projects helping USDA address this issue.

Treatment, Storage, and Collection of Manure

a manure storage area All livestock and poultry feeding operations need to treat, store, and collect animal waste properly to prevent excess nutrients and pathogens from entering ground and surface water. Research through CSREES and the Land Grant Systme is being conducted to assess and improve the treatment, storage, and collection of manure to protect and improve water quality.

Mechanical, Biological, and Chemical Treatment Technologies
Alternative manure collection, treatment, and storage technologies are being explored and implemented to prevent water quality degradation.

Accomplishments:
University of Tennessee researchers (funding from UT Dairy Experiment Station) developed and tested a standard performance testing protocol for mechanical manure solids separators . Their results illustrate the importance of having performance data specific to the manure with to be used.

Methods of in-house pasteurization of broiler litter are being evaluated through Louisiana State University. This method reduced pathogen counts of broiler litter that will allow the litter to be recycled/reused within poultry houses thereby reducing the amount of poultry waste produced each year.

Researchers at North Carolina State University are assessing an alternative swine waste treatment technology to help manage nutrients. After 12 months, laboratory-scale reactor studies show that intermittent aeration reactors can accomplish over 80% removal of nitrogen (N) from swine wastewater.

The implementation of sampling and analysis of stored manure is necessary to develop proper manure application rates. The goals of a project at the University of Kentucky are to encourage the adoption of advanced animal nutrient management strategies animal producers, and to assess cooperator acceptance of these practices, cost of implementation, and environmental benefits. (Higgins et al., 2008)

Best Management Practices (BMPs)
Researchers are designing, improving, and testing animal waste best management practices (BMPs) to retain excess nutrients and pathogens before it negatively impacts water quality.

a soil infiltration and wetland system

Accomplishments:
A soil infiltration and wetland system (Lorimor et al., 2003) to treat open beef feedlot runoff was examined at Iowa State University. This passive treatment system could be an effective alternative to total containment and land application for open feedlots in humid areas with tile-drainable soils.

A literature synthesis of the effectiveness of buffer strips on nutrient movement from land was completed by Kansas State University Extension personnel (much of the research included in this synthesis was from Land-Grant Universities). One conclusion drawn from this synthesis was that vegetative buffers are very effective in removing sediments and sediment-bound pollutants. Vegetative buffers are less effective at removing water soluble contaminant; they tend to remove water soluble contaminants proportional to the infiltration rate of the water.

Texas Cooperative Extension served as a lead agency in the Upper North Bosque River Project . One of the research results of this project was that filter strips with a minimum width of 35 feet could dramatically reduce phosphorus (P) losses in runoff. During the project, buffer strips were installed at 167 locations on over 140 acres to protect adjacent creeks and streams.

Researchers in the Heartland Region found that narrow grass hedges were very effective and relatively inexpensive means to significantly reduce the transport of P and N in runoff where manure was applied.

Texas A&M is developing a portable On-Farm Manure to Energy Conversion System. The “on-farm bio-digestion and gasification” process is a BMP that combines digestion of liquid manure with thermal conversion to digest and stabilize nutrients, reduce the volume of liquid manure by 80 percent, kill most pathogens and generate fuel for energy production. An additional benefit of this BMP is that the byproducts of this process has the potential to be used as fertilizer.

The objective of research at the University of Nebraska was to determine the effect of setback distance on phosphorus and sediment in runoff. Properly managed setbacks improve water quality by acting as filters for water passing over or through the soil toward a water resource. Implementing No-manure setback application as BMP to reduce phosphorus and sediment loss, is highly associated with time of manure application, rainfall events and characteristics of runoff contributing area.

For more information on the current state of knowledge in the area of treatment, storage and collection of manure, refer to the following white paper summaries:
Manure Management Strategies/Technologies
Treatment Lagoons for Animal Agriculture

Both of these summaries were produced by the National Center for Manure and Animal Waste Management funded through a USDA CSREES Fund for Rural America Grant.

Indicates work supported by the USDA-CSREES National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program .

The intent of this page is not to catalogue all activities but rather to indicate the types of research activities in the Animal Waste Management theme across the U.S.