Tone Ag Consulting Ltd.

I attended the Achieving Manure Phosphorus Balance In Manitoba Technical Workshop on November 30 and December 1, 2009.  Here is a quick summary of what I heard.

Opening Remarks – Barry Todd, Deputy Minister, MAFRI

• Manure is a valuable commodity – not waste
• Many of our current issues have been around for a long time – our farming ancestors dealt with many of these same issues
• Manitoba agriculture is fairly evenly divided between crop production and livestock production
• The best environmental solutions are those that are economically viable

Manure Phosphorus Balance: What’s the Big Deal? – Don Flaten, University of Manitoba

• The Lake Winnipeg problems are one instance of broader concerns
• Algae fix nitrogen (much like alfalfa does) given phosphorous in the water
• There are a lot of contributors to the phosphorous problem – how do we reduce our share – not someone else’s
• No soil has an infinite capacity to hold phosphorous  – we need balance eventually
• The problem with manure and phosphorous is that the N:P2O5 ratio is usually < 1:1 where as most crops remove N:PP2O5 at a greater than 2:1 ratio  (i.e. manure supplies roughly equal amounts of N and P2O5, crops use at least twice as much N as they do P2O5)
• Land use has a huge impact on the P removal rates – with manure application targeted for N grazed land receives enough P to supply the pasture’s P needs for 40 years!
• Manitoba uses about five times as much synthetic P as there is livestock P produced
• There are three primary strategies for dealing with manure P: Feed management, Crop and Land management, and Manure Management and Treatment

Regulatory Update: P-based Manure Management Regulations – Mike Gilbertson, Manitoba Conservation

• The speaker who was supposed to give the talk couldn’t make it, neither could the next in line, so Mike Gilbertson, Director of Environmental Services for Manitoba Conservation, gave the talk
• He reviewed the history of the regulations
• The Manitoba Phosphorus Expert Committee and the Clean Environment Commission’s recommendations shaped a lot of the regulations
• Someone asked “With all the barns shutting down, why pile on more regulations now?” and the question wasn’t really answered

Livestock Industry Update: Challenges of Regulatory Compliance in a Competitive Industry – Ian Wishart, Keystone Agricultural Producers

• He started his talk with an overview of various livestock sectors
• Dairy: Financial situation is decent, winter manure spreading is an issue, there’s a shift to larger operations
• Poultry: new engineering challenges for storing manure, trend to larger operations, some movement of operations to lower intensity areas
• Hogs: long, hard financial stress, lost equity, Regulatory timelines are adding stress, hogs are an export market
• Cattle: export sector, significant financial challenges, feed lots particularly are facing P challenges
• The new regulations: factors come down to what sector you’re in, what soils you’re on, what the trends are.
• New techniques for P management are costly and not financially feasible at present
• He then debunked some common myths, showing that farmers do act on environmental issues, that farmers have done a lot to reduce P levels, that wetlands are there because farmers protect them, that large operations manage their nutrients as well as small operations
• It was a very well done talk

Environmental Farm Action Program Beneficial Management Practices for Manure Phosphorus -  Allan Preston, Assistant Deputy Minister, MAFRI

• The current program only runts to 2013, so it’s 40% of the way though
• The program is not designed to be equitable – the emphasis is on overall benefits of funded changes
• The program has ratings and ranking to try to make evaluation of costs/benefits as objective as possible
• There are some Beneficial Management Practices funded for soil and liquid manure and storages

Low Cost Options for Manure P Management – Diet Modification – Robyn Harte, MAFRI

• P is needed for many vital bodily functions and growth
• The current regulations require that P be overfed to pigs
• Feed is a huge component of the cost of raising animals (60-70% for hogs, > 70% for dairy)
• There is no data that overfeeding of P helps the animals in any way
• Less P in = less P out
• Phytase makes more of the total P in feed available to non-ruminant animals

Low Cost Options for Manure P Management – Conventional Manure & Crop Management – Scott Dick, Agra-Gold Consulting & Sheldon Stott, Hytek Ltd.

• Scott and Sheldon took a tag-team approach to their presentation
• Sheldon gave an overview of current and historical liquid manure application methods
• Scott reviewed some of his past studies – the variability of manure during pump out for different storages, typical agitation procedures
• Scott then moved on to a study he and Cliff Loewen carried out showing the variability of soil test P on manured soils.  It showed that P level can vary wildly even within small areas of a field. (I wish I had a copy of that study I could link to).
• They looked at the economics of pumping and showed a couple of fascinating case studies.   For one barn that’s surrounded entirely by grazing land, they would need 46,000 acres to achieve P balance.

Overview of Liquid Manure Treatment Options – Nazim Cicek, University of Manitoba

• There are a lot of systems out there for processing manure
• Gravity settling
• Screen of manure
• Centrifugation
• Filtration / pressing
• Anaerobic digestion

Overview of Solid Manure Treatment Options – Kathy Buckley, AAFC – Brandon Research Centre

• Her talk focused both on what we know and what we don’t know about various treatment options
• Biological treatment : Composting, anaerobic digestion, biomass conversion
• Mechanical Processes: air drying, granulation, pelleting
• Thermo-chemical: direct combustion, gasification, pyrolysis
• Most of these are limited to handling one form of manure and dealing with the products is still a challenge.  The economics are challenging for most of these

Environmental Sustainability and Hog Production in Québec: Current Status of Manure Treatment/Processing Options for Phosphorus Management -  Marc Trudelle, Quebec Pork Producers

• Marc gave an overview of what has been tried in Quebec
• He discussed what each of the systems put out as a final product
• The interesting part was the economic and failure analysis of the different systems – the best systems was still an increased cost to the producer as compared to current practices

Phosphorus Reduction and Recovery from Animal Manures – Robert Burns, Iowa State University

• Robert Burns discussed the results of some of his field-scale research on manure separation in Iowa
• Struvite works for extracting P but the magnesium to make it work is very costly
• Geo-synthetic Bag Dewatering can work but requires that the manure form be very consistent
• There are options, but they’re not cheap

Developing and Evaluating Practical and Effective Manure Treatment Options for Livestock Producers, a North Carolina perspective -  Mark Rice, North Carolina State University

• Mark gave an overview of the different systems that have been tried in North Carolina
• Essentially there are a lot of systems that could work for new barns
• Converting a existing barn for manure treatment is not likely to work at all
• So far the systems are not economically feasible
• See the Environmentally Superior Technologies Evaluated link for more details.

Examples of Manure Treatment Technology in Manitoba

• Five companies discussed their technologies and how they can help with dealing with P in Manitoba
• PDK discussed using Near Infrared Spectroscopy for real-time analysis of hog manure during pump out.  This would let people see what amounts of nutrients have been pumped in different areas of the fields.
• Osorno discussed their liquid-solid separation system currently operating at Deerboine Colony.
• Samson Engineering discussed their   SEPDI anaerobic digestion system at Riverbend Colony Farms
• Livestock Water Recycling talked about their four-month project in Brunkild.
• Pig Manure Treatment Limited gave an overview of their process which has been in operation in one barn for over three years.
• All of these projects emphasized simplicity as a selling feature
• I’m more than a little skeptical of the costs / payback that were presented.

Inventory of Manure P Management Extension and Tech transfer Activities in Manitoba – Mitchell Timmerman, MAFRI

• In Manitoba, while erosion is a concern, the bigger concern is the runoff of water-soluble P from frozen soils
• P risk comes from: addition of P above crop removal, mobilization of that P, delivery of that P to the water, followed  by impact on water quality
• Management at field, farm, and regional scales is needed
• There are no quick solutions to high soil P levels
• Dealing with P surpluses (in order of least to greatest cost): Feed efficiency, Optimize P content of Feed, Reduce fertilizer P imports, Adapt cropping procedure that maximize P removal, Expand application land base, and finally Manure treatment

Inventory of Manure P Management research in Manitoba – Brandy Street and Christine Rawluk

• Studies of the effects of dietary P surpluses / deficits on pigs
• National Centre for Livestock and the Environment (NCLE) works for interdisciplinary coordination of research
• They are working on different modeling tools
• One of their studies is the fertilizer equivalences of different manures – how much swine/dairy/poultry/beef manure do you have to put on to match the equivalent amount of synthetic fertilizer?
• There was a mention of the possibility of health problems for cattle in high K forages.