SEARCH
Industry Partners
Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Concrete Manure Storage Structures: Specifications and Standards in Canada
Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2005 | No Comments
Concrete is a practical, economical and durable material for storage structures for manure. Manure storage structures must be designed for strength, durability and water tightness. This requires evaluation, design, quality concrete, reinforcement, finishing, and curing for strength. There are 7 categories of structures for manure storage systems, each with pros and cons. Two general approaches are taken in regards to regulatory processes for manure storage facilities in Canada. These two approaches include provinces that require compliance of farm structures with the building code and provinces where farm buildings are exempt from building codes. A professional engineer will be required for some components in the process. The components of manure storage systems include functional design (correct volume, connections, safety, etc.) and structural design (leak control, loads, reinforcement, concrete, etc.). In 2003-2004 the National Building Code made changes to the specified loads section. This section now includes liquid loads, ice loads, soil and backfill loads, exterior walls below grade, frost loads, temperature stress, wind loads, vehicular loads, and other live loads. The engineer must ensure that Soil Bearing Capacity and Uniformity of Base are appropriate through sub-grade preparation and structural design. There are generally 2 significantly different applications for wall design for concrete manure storages: shallow storages and large volume, freestanding storage structures. Joints in the walls are sites to be identified as they are subject to leakage. Join construction requires a mechanical water stop, a 10 mm full-length joint, and a strip of expanding caulking in the middle of the wall. Concrete used must be durable, low permeability, resistant to corrosion, and must meet a specified strength. Concrete mix design must be based on the factors that include water-cementing materials ratio, air entrainment, type of cement, additives, aggregate type and size, and class of exposure. Good construction techniques must be followed in order to ensure a long lasting, leak-free, high quality structure. This requires proper placement, finishing, curing, reinforcement and jointing. Proper documentation and quality control is recommended.
Potential for Onsite and Online Analysis of Pig Manure using Visible and Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments
In this research, the feasibility of a mobile spectroscopy instrument (Zeiss Corona 45 visnir fibre remote) in the visible (VIS) and near infrared (NIR) wavebands for onsite and online analysis of pig manure was investigated. The sensor was calibrated using the one-out cross-validation technique on a set of pig manure samples collected in the spring of 2004 and validated for its ‘true’ prediction accuracy on a set of samples collected in the spring of 2003 from different Flemish farms. Based on the values of coefficient of determination r2 and the ratio of standard deviation of validation set to root mean square error of crossvalidation, the prediction results were evaluated as excellent for dry matter content, good for organic matter content and total nitrogen and approximate for ammonium nitrogen, phosphorus and magnesium. The calibrations for potassium and calcium were only able to discriminate between high and low values. These are encouraging results to recommend the VIS–NIR spectroscopy instrument for onsite measurement of manure composition. This sensor could promote a better manure management based on onsite or even online analysis during haul-out or soil application stages.
Predicting ammonia losses following the application of livestock manure to land
Posted in: Environment by admin on | No Comments