A2S-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 22,1986
Manure
BY MONTIE TAK
Special Correspondent
CHAMBERSBURG
“Whatever you build, do a quality
job,” says William J. Bowers.
An agricultural engineer from
the Soil Conservation Service,
Bowers was addressing a capacity
audience attending the Regional
Manure Conference on February 4
in Chambersburg. He spoke or
sizing, site selection, construction
and maintenance techniques for
storing manure.
The Chambersburg conference
was the first of four given in a
“traveling road show” format in
Pennsylvania. Conferences on
subsequent days were scheduled
for East Brandywine, Bethlehem
and Lewisburg in a collaboration
between the Soil Conservation
Service and Penn State University.
If you had previously thought of
manure management in terms of a
pitchfork and shovel, one of these
conferences was the place to be.
Agricultural engineers and
agronomists discussed storage and
handling systems, compared costs
and nutrient retention of manure
systems and use of manure for
crop production.
Bowers says good manure
management is important for a
number of reasons. “Manure
storage helps to make maximum
use of nutrients. The big item is
nitrogen. If you put it out in the
fields in January, very little
ATTENTION
VEGETABLE GROWERS!
VEGETABLE GROWERS MEETING
Wed., Febniary 26,1986
7:00 PA Sharp
LEOLA FAMILY RESTAURANT
(Light Refreshments from 6:30-7:00 p.m.)
Speaker:
§1 Dr. Pete Ferretti - Extension Vegetable
Specialist - Penn State
Topic: Lime & Fertility as pertains to General
Vegetable Production
#2. Dr. Mike Orzolek - Extension Vegetable
Specialist - Penn State
Topic: Intensive Pepper Production
#3 Dr. Ernest L. Bergman - Professor of Plant
Nutrition - Penn State
Topic: Tips on Celery Production & What’s The
Future On Celery Production
#4 Dan Schantz - Past President, PA Veg.
Growers Association
#5 Arnold Lueck - Lancaster County Agriculture
Agent
Pesticide Updates Will Be Available
At Meeting
.MASTER FARMER FERTILIZER
If ( AG PRODUCTS )
r \ tumniwiiimlm
I [ AG SERVICES J
In Co-operation With Lancaster County Extension Service
systems have to be built properly
nitrogen will be left by June.” clean runoff should be excluded as . .. t Remember, out of
He adds manure handling is a possible while polluted runoff . M OU f ofmin d.”
system and if it is not properly should be collected. Method of Critical aspects in considering
utilized, farmers may unwittingly loading and unloading and existing the uge of folding ponds as tern
cause pollution and incur possible handling equipment must be Dorarv storage are the im
involvement by the Department of considered as well as personal Derme ability of the soil, depth to
Environmental Resources. preference of the farm operator bedrock type of bedrock and level
Bowers enumerated the reasons As Bowers stated, If you like a t er table. Bowers ad
for wanting to store manure. The reinforced concrete, build a voca t e s the use of test pits to check
first is the convenience of reinforced concrete manure the water table,
spreading manure when weather storage.” if you are using a gravity flow
and scheduling allows. Then, with Other factors in deciding storage sys t e ni to load a manure storage,
increasing fertilizer prices, “We type and location are suitability of Bowers says you mus t use little or
have a real resource here and we soil, is the possible site on a flood bedding. There must be six feet
need to take advantage of it.” plain, space available, distance to 0 f elevation from the hopper to the
Thirdly, he says, “A nutrient not in a well or the nearest dwelling, f u n level in storage. Pipe size for a
the right place can become a direction of the prevailing wind operation is 24 inches or
pollutant.” and local regulations. One thing mor ' an £ for a swine operation, six
finp arpa he discussed was the Bowers views as important is
difference between manure vegetative screening. “I think this inches or rnore with a mimmum
storage and a manure lagoon. Ais something we have overlong four feet of cover over the pipe
lagoon may be four to ten times * r
larger than storage and is designed
to break down solids and nutrients.
But storage systems are designed
to conserve nutrients and
ultimately to be emptied
Factors to be considered are the
type, size and number of animals,
type of bedding used, amount of
wash water entering the system
and the length of storage time
Bowers noted the Soil Con
servation Service considers six
months the minimum time of
storage. Barnyard runoff and
storm rainfall amounts also need
to be considered in sizing storage.
Site selection should be close to
the source of manure. As much
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Bowers also says manure must
cover the pipe outlet before
freezing weather.
If topography is right, you can
use a gravity unloading system to
get the manure to the spreader
from the storage tank. Y«u must
slope the bottom of the storage to
the outlet channel and use two
gates, one as an emergency
shutdown to avoid accidental
unloading of the entire storage
system.
“If you have a choice and can
only go either loading or unloading
with gravity, look at your system
very carefully before you make the
decision.”
In making decisions regarding
storage, Bowers urged farmers to
take stock of their operation.
“Build what you design,”
Bowers urged, “and operate it
according to plan We want to see
manure get to the crops ”
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