Plant remediation of soil beneath an abandoned animal waste lagoon

Posted in: Environment by admin on January 1, 2003 | No Comments

In the 21st century, remediation of the soil beneath animal waste lagoons will become an important issue, as they are closed due to environmental regulations. Methods to remediate abandoned lagoons to prevent environmental degradation have not been developed. One remediation method might be to grow plants in the contaminated soil. They would stabilize the soil and prevent erosion. No work has been published to see if plants will grow in abandoned animal waste lagoon soil with its high level of ammonium N. Thus, the first objective of this experiment was to determine under greenhouse conditions if barley (Hordeum vulgare ‘Weskan’), the most salt tolerant of commercially important crops, would grow in the lagoon soil. A second objective was to determine if plant residues (oat (Avena sativa) straw and maize (Zea mays) cobs) added to the lagoon soil would tie up N, because of their high C:N ratio. The lagoon soil came from the bottom of a closed swine lagoon. The high concentration of ammonium N in the swine-lagoon soil (1349 mg kg-1) did not inhibit barley emergence and growth. The lagoon soil with no residues sustained barley growth. Plants grown in soil amended with oat straw grew as well as plants grown in the soil with no residues, but barley grown in lagoon soil with maize cobs grew poorly for two reasons. First, the maize cobs provided an inadequate seedbed and emergence was low. Second, water moved through preferential paths in the soil with maize cobs and was not retained in the pot for plant growth. More N remained in the lagoon soil with both types of residues than in the soil without residues. Results showed that the physical characteristics caused by the residue were of most importance in permitting sustained barley growth in swine-lagoon soil.

Quiz Your Understanding of Manure

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Much of the nitrogen from the manure spread during cold weather, on soil that contains moisture, is held in the soil and is available in the spring. 25 to 50% of the organic nitrogen converts to nitrogen that is readily available to the growing crop if manure is spread in March or April. Agitating manure in storage before spreading it will improve nutrient uniformity, though it is still important to test the manure and spread it uniformly on the fields, especially if it is sand-laden manure. Sand-laden manure that is stored in a pit varies significantly in consistency and nutrient composition from the beginning to the end of emptying so 3 manure tests should be taken. Straw-packed manure also has less nutrient value than liquid manure so should be tested.
The different sources of nitrogen make no difference to their uptake in crops. Crops cannot tell the difference between fertilizer, livestock manure or green manure cover crops. It also makes no difference if it is the first time manure is put on a field or not, it still will have equal nutrient values. Spreading on the same field over three years, on the other hand, can result in a significant amount of nitrogen being “slow released”. After the third year, manure that was spread two or three seasons earlier will still be releasing nitrogen. It is therefore important to test the soil for how much nitrogen is available.

Altering Water Use by Diet Manipulation

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Performance of a passive feedlot runoff control and treatment system

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Prospering Under Pressure – Who is the Enemy?

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Raising livestock involves stresses of production goals, environment, and the image of agriculture. Environmental enemies include an uninformed public, politicians, relations, anti-organizations, and even some producers. Education must be provided to the public in order to remove these negative thoughts of the confined livestock industry. Often a politician will use the livestock industry as an electoral advantage. They may use unflattering or even false information to their advantage to win the trust of the public or use their authority to influence regulatory agencies. The livestock industry must remain involved in politics so that they do not become overwhelmingly targeted. Regulatory agents/agencies that do not understand the environment or agriculture are very bad for the industry. Regulations should be scientific and have some involvement from the livestock industry itself. Anti-organizations can hinder the start-up of new facilities by getting the uninformed public on their side to protest. There is even precedence of a permit renewal being denied due to an anti-organization. They are also capable of crimes such as vandalism when they want to get a point across. Some producers themselves may run operations that contribute to this concern with poorly designed facilities that contribute to the degradation of the environment. Some producers also elect to not participate in improving the education of the public and choose poor sites for their operations. Suggested environmental protocol includes inspections, manure management plans, records, groundwater protection, regulatory involvement, permit review, system redundancy, knowing neighbours and enemies, and continuing educational efforts.

Biofiltration of n-butyric acid for the control of odour

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Bermudagrass Cultivar Response to Swine Effluent Application

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Effluent from biodigesters with different retention times for primary production and feed of Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

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Water usage by grower-finisher pigs using dry and wet/dry feeders

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Summary

Water conservation is a growing concern in intensive swine operations (ISOs) for both financial and environmental reasons. The water usage of a grower-finisher room in an ISO was measured using dry and wet/dry feeders. The major source and sink of water was at the drinker and in the manure, respectively. In addition, water disappearance and manure volume were reduced from 9.3 to 6.2 and from 8.9 to 5.4 kg water/pig-day, respectively, when wet/dry feeders were used in place of dry feeders. Therefore, wet/dry feeders are an effective alternative for reducing water usage and manure volume of grower-finisher barns.

Introduction

To address water conservation in intensive swine operations the significant sources and sinks of water need to be identified to know where to focus future research efforts. Previous studies have shown that use of wet/dry feeders in place of dry feeders has potential water savings. The objective of this study was to systematically measure and report the water usage of grower-finisher swine using dry and wet/dry feeders.

Experimental Procedures

Six separate grower-finisher cycles were followed and the parameters of water usage, including water from the drinkers, in the feed, metabolic reactions, within the pig, ventilated from the room and in the manure, were measured for each cycle.

Results and Discussion

Table 1 presents a summary of the average values for the water balance measured over the six cycles. The significant source and sink of water was at the drinker, at 72% of the total water source, and in the slurry, at 64% of the total water sink, respectively. The use of wet/dry feeders compared to dry feeders significantly reduced both the water disappearance at the drinker by up to 34% (p<0.05), as seen in Fig. 1, and the volume of the slurry by up to 29% (p<0.05) for finisher pigs. The pig performance was not significantly different for pigs on dry and wet/dry feeders (p>0.05), although by the end of the finisher phase the pigs on wet/dry feeders were generally 5% larger than the pigs on the dry feeders. The feed conversions (FC) were similar for pigs on both dry and wet/dry feeders, with the FC being slightly higher for pigs on wet/dry feeders.

Implications

Future research on water conservation in an ISO should focus on the drinker and on the manure. Use of wet/dry feeders versus dry feeders generally resulted in less water being used and less manure to handle, decreasing the water usage and storage and handling costs.

Acknowledgments

Strategic funding for this project was provided by SaskPork, Alberta Pork, Manitoba Pork and Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food Development Fund. Project funding was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Effect of barley sample, particle size and enzyme supplementation on energy digestibility of barley fed grower pigs

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The feed processing procedures grinding and enzyme supplementation were tested to reduce the existing variability in DE content of barley. Particle size reduction but not enzyme supplementation increased energy digestibility of barley and partially reduced the variation in energy digestibility.