By employing new manure mapping technologies and through their own progressive initiatives, Iowa’s Van Gilst brothers are keeping their hog farm ahead of the curve on the manure management front. The barns at the Van Gilst operation are all slatted, with eight-foot cement pits under each. The pits can hold enough manure for up to a year, though they try to pump the barns in both the spring and fall, depending on weather conditions. They are working to incorporate technology—in the form of mapping software that would record manure hauls—into their operation,
which will tell them easily and quickly what areas of the fields have been covered.