Optimizing Manure Application Rates and Uniformity

Amy Schmidt Author

01/26/2020 Added

33 Plays

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manure spreader calibration video for Land Application Training 2020

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[00:00:07.110]Hi, everyone, I'm Amy Schmidt,
[00:00:08.770]Livestock Bio-Environmental Engineer at UNL
[00:00:11.940]and a member of the Animal Manure Management Team
[00:00:14.630]and I'm gonna talk to you
[00:00:15.590]about how and why you can optimize
[00:00:17.600]the rate and uniformity of your manure application.
[00:00:21.290]It makes sense that you want to apply manure
[00:00:23.330]in a way that nutrients are distributed uniformly
[00:00:26.770]and at a rate that matches the needs of your crops.
[00:00:30.560]Interestingly, a study like this one
[00:00:34.070]out of Michigan State University
[00:00:36.000]found that only about 25% of farmers that they surveyed
[00:00:39.560]were achieving a manure application rate
[00:00:41.640]within plus or minus 20% of their intended rate.
[00:00:45.320]So, you can see that oftentimes,
[00:00:48.690]if calibration isn't completed,
[00:00:51.060]your actual application rate
[00:00:52.670]may be over or under what you're intending to apply
[00:00:57.110]and this can lead to a number of issues.
[00:01:02.040]Aside from potentially not matching your crop needs,
[00:01:05.850]over-application can increase the risk
[00:01:08.050]for environmental pollution
[00:01:10.040]and can also lead to a loss of value
[00:01:13.300]in the nutrients that are applied
[00:01:15.600]beyond the needs of the crop.
[00:01:17.660]Under-application can lead to yield reduction
[00:01:21.650]and also can contribute to inaccurate
[00:01:23.870]nutrient management plan records.
[00:01:32.530]So efficient and economical management of manure nutrients
[00:01:36.970]can only really be achieved if application rates are known.
[00:01:41.330]We know that rates and uniformity of application
[00:01:43.970]can vary with even small changes
[00:01:46.000]in equipment settings or other factors.
[00:01:50.040]So calibration of equipment is really the best way
[00:01:52.310]to ensure that you're applying manure
[00:01:53.950]at your intended rate and therefore optimizing
[00:01:57.280]the economic value of that manure.
[00:02:02.030]So, we're gonna talk about how to figure out
[00:02:03.810]how much manure you're actually applying
[00:02:05.990]based on your particular equipment,
[00:02:07.920]the characteristics of the manure
[00:02:09.450]and your operational decisions
[00:02:11.710]and then we're also gonna look at how to determine
[00:02:13.870]the uniformity of your applications
[00:02:16.280]and then, if necessary, make adjustments
[00:02:18.980]if the spreading patterns aren't uniform.
[00:02:24.770]So for liquid spreader application,
[00:02:27.560]there's a couple of different ways to determine
[00:02:29.770]your application rate.
[00:02:31.700]Both of these require that you know,
[00:02:33.710]first of all, how much manure is applied
[00:02:35.680]and second, how much land area is covered with that manure.
[00:02:39.730]One thing to keep in mind is that the most
[00:02:41.450]accurate measurement of your application rate
[00:02:44.730]is going to be achieved if you do this calibration
[00:02:47.260]over a single straight pass
[00:02:48.730]rather than over multiple passes
[00:02:51.540]that include turns
[00:02:52.570]or other changes in speed.
[00:02:55.920]So first, we're going to look at the volume-area
[00:02:59.720]calibration method and as the name implies,
[00:03:04.340]in this particular method, we're taking the volume
[00:03:07.620]of manure in our tanker and we're dividing it
[00:03:11.490]by the total area that's covered by that manure
[00:03:14.380]during the application.
[00:03:17.610]The area that's covered is calculated
[00:03:19.410]just by multiplying the swath width or the width
[00:03:23.220]that is covered by the applicator
[00:03:25.960]multiplied by the distance that's traveled
[00:03:28.650]and both of these should be measured in feet
[00:03:31.180]to make your calculation as easy as possible.
[00:03:35.160]The volume that you apply,
[00:03:37.920]you can certainly take the advertised volume
[00:03:40.270]of the spreader but that requires
[00:03:42.660]that the tank is completely filled.
[00:03:44.470]If that's not the case, then you'll need to calculate
[00:03:47.210]the actual volume of manure that's in the tank.
[00:03:51.730]And so, the volume of the manure in a liquid tanker
[00:03:57.130]that isn't completely filled can be found
[00:03:59.850]with either of these two formulas and it depends on
[00:04:02.930]whether you have around or an oval shaped spreader.
[00:04:09.320]You'll again wanna take the measurements
[00:04:11.100]of the tanker dimensions in feet,
[00:04:12.860]so it'd be the length,
[00:04:14.830]the length of the spreader,
[00:04:15.930]the fill depth and the diameter or width of the of the tank.
[00:04:21.530]And then, because you'll get that that value in cubic feet,
[00:04:26.320]you'll wanna convert that to gallons
[00:04:27.840]because what you get for a manure analysis
[00:04:30.240]is likely to be listed as pounds per thousand gallons.
[00:04:35.200]So in order to do that calculation,
[00:04:37.320]you'll just take the volume of manure in cubic feet
[00:04:41.990]and divide that by 7.48
[00:04:44.720]to determine the volume of that manure in gallons.
[00:04:51.630]So, rather than calculating the rate
[00:04:53.970]using the volume of manure applied,
[00:04:57.130]you can also use the weight of manure applied.
[00:05:00.700]This is usually a little bit more accurate method
[00:05:03.890]but it does require that you have access to a scale
[00:05:06.750]to weigh the manure tank both empty and full
[00:05:09.760]and again, as with the volume weight calibration method,
[00:05:13.670]the area that you cover with that manure
[00:05:16.420]when it's applied is just found by taking
[00:05:18.840]the width of the spread pattern by the distance traveled
[00:05:21.910]to empty the spreader.
[00:05:29.130]So, once the weight of manure applied
[00:05:32.330]is found by taking the weight of the full tank
[00:05:34.410]minus the weight of the empty tank,
[00:05:36.510]again in pounds, then you'll need to convert that weight
[00:05:40.570]to a volume.
[00:05:43.638]To convert the weight to volume,
[00:05:45.410]you need to know the density of the manure
[00:05:48.090]and manure density is, for liquid manures,
[00:05:51.810]relatively close to the density of water.
[00:05:55.440]But it's best to measure that
[00:05:57.900]maybe with each load of manure that's emptied and applied,
[00:06:02.820]just because that can change with the solids content
[00:06:05.610]of the manure.
[00:06:07.430]So to find manure density, you can use a bucket
[00:06:10.680]that you know the volume of, so a five gallon
[00:06:12.810]or three gallon bucket works well.
[00:06:16.400]Fill the bucket and weigh it
[00:06:18.490]and then subtract the weight of the empty bucket
[00:06:20.300]from the weight of the full bucket.
[00:06:22.750]Then take the weight of the manure
[00:06:26.270]and divide it by the volume of the bucket
[00:06:29.070]and then this will give you a density in pounds per gallon.
[00:06:35.920]Once you know that density of the manure,
[00:06:37.610]then calculating volume of manure
[00:06:40.330]just requires that you take that weight that was applied
[00:06:44.650]based on weight of the full tank
[00:06:46.620]minus the weight of the empty tank
[00:06:48.570]and divide that by the density of manure
[00:06:50.630]that you just found in pounds per gallon.
[00:06:58.880]So we'll look at a couple of examples.
[00:07:01.610]This is also a good time to mention that
[00:07:03.760]the calibration process should really be repeated
[00:07:07.190]each time you make any changes
[00:07:08.800]in how you're operating the spreader.
[00:07:10.730]So, if you make changes in travel speed
[00:07:13.770]or the discharge rate, etc,
[00:07:16.730]you would want to do another calibration
[00:07:18.660]to accurately determine your application rate.
[00:07:22.129]And you need to keep in mind,
[00:07:23.210]it's possible that several calibration passes
[00:07:26.050]may be necessary to determine the settings
[00:07:29.130]that you need to have to meet that desired application rate
[00:07:33.350]that you're trying to achieve.
[00:07:36.900]So let's look at an example here and in this case,
[00:07:40.510]we're using the volume area method.
[00:07:42.890]So we know that our tank has a capacity of 6000 gallons
[00:07:48.280]and we filled it completely.
[00:07:50.310]And let's assume that we applied that
[00:07:52.300]to an area that measured 40 feet wide by 1200 feet long
[00:07:56.120]so that broadcast manure swath width
[00:07:59.880]was 40 feet and we drove the tanker 1200 feet
[00:08:03.710]in order to empty it.
[00:08:06.620]So the area of land to which the 6000 gallons of manure
[00:08:10.010]were applied is just 1200 feet times 40 feet.
[00:08:13.420]So that gives us 48,000 square feet as that area.
[00:08:17.620]If we divide the 6000 gallons by 48,000 square feet,
[00:08:22.710]that gives us a rate of .125 gallons per square foot.
[00:08:29.070]This is not a value that we typically work with.
[00:08:32.310]So we'll need to convert that into a volume per acre
[00:08:38.300]and we do that by multiplying our .125 gallons
[00:08:42.400]per foot squared by 43,560 feet squared,
[00:08:47.350]which equals an acre.
[00:08:49.140]And so once we do that,
[00:08:50.600]then we get an application rate of 5445 gallons per acre.
[00:09:05.890]So in this other example,
[00:09:07.820]we'll take that same manure tanker and assuming
[00:09:13.450]maybe we didn't quite fill it all the way
[00:09:15.400]or just perhaps we have access to a scale
[00:09:18.990]and we can get a little bit more accurate measure
[00:09:22.610]of how much manure is in there.
[00:09:25.460]We'll weigh that that tanker when it's empty
[00:09:29.960]and then when it's full and in this case,
[00:09:33.820]we're assuming that the full tanker weighed 61,248 pounds
[00:09:40.300]and that empty, that tanker weighed 10,000 pounds.
[00:09:44.030]So by subtracting the empty weight from the filled weight,
[00:09:47.270]we now can figure out the weight of manure
[00:09:50.010]that was actually applied which would be 51,248 pounds.
[00:09:55.770]Again, we covered the same area.
[00:09:59.190]1200 feet in length, 40 foot swath width,
[00:10:02.970]so that's 48,000 square feet and then if we just divide
[00:10:08.720]our weight of manure by that area that was covered,
[00:10:13.500]in this case, we come up with an application rate
[00:10:15.870]of 1.1 pounds per square feet.
[00:10:18.980]Again, we don't typically talk in pounds per square feet,
[00:10:22.350]we talk in gallons per acre.
[00:10:24.340]So we'll need to convert the square feet to acres,
[00:10:27.720]again by multiplying by 43,560
[00:10:32.570]and then we need to divide that by the density
[00:10:36.380]of that manure, which in this case
[00:10:38.820]were taped to be 8.34 pounds per gallon
[00:10:42.460]and when we do that,
[00:10:43.790]we come out with a application rate of 5,576
[00:10:48.720]gallons per acre.
[00:10:51.040]So, when we did it on a volume-area method,
[00:10:56.500]we came up with 5,445 and now We're getting 5,576.
[00:11:02.260]So, this number two or three percent higher
[00:11:05.450]than what we calculated based on volume,
[00:11:08.620]I would expect this weight measure
[00:11:11.690]to be a little bit more accurate
[00:11:13.550]but these are not vastly different results.
[00:11:18.530]So I think both gave us a pretty good idea
[00:11:20.760]of what was being applied
[00:11:24.290]but what if your desired application rate
[00:11:27.160]is closer to 7000 gallons per acre?
[00:11:32.000]If that's the case, then your actual rate
[00:11:33.990]that you're applying is about 20% lower
[00:11:36.560]than your target rate.
[00:11:38.280]So, your best option might be
[00:11:40.370]to slow down the travel speed of the applicator,
[00:11:42.930]but there's a number of other options
[00:11:44.590]that you might consider.
[00:11:46.470]So I'm going to ask the onsite host
[00:11:49.260]to pause the recording for a minute or two
[00:11:51.040]and I'd like for you to have some discussion
[00:11:54.490]among yourselves about what other adjustments
[00:11:57.160]you could make to achieve the target application rate
[00:12:00.230]of 7000 gallons per acre
[00:12:03.970]and once you've had that discussion,
[00:12:05.780]then you can come back and and we'll move along.
[00:12:19.670]Okay, welcome back.
[00:12:21.240]I hope you're able to share some strategies
[00:12:23.140]that you have used in the past
[00:12:25.650]for adjusting your operational parameters
[00:12:28.720]to achieve the desired application rate.
[00:12:31.800]Again, I'll remind you that once you make some changes
[00:12:36.080]in travel speed or other factors,
[00:12:38.400]you'll wanna do another calibration to confirm
[00:12:42.060]that you're closer to achieving that desired rate
[00:12:45.360]that you're going for.
[00:12:49.690]So, now that you know the rate of application
[00:12:51.760]based on the particular settings you've determined,
[00:12:54.960]let's talk about the uniformity of the application.
[00:12:58.540]In an ideal world, a spreader would apply
[00:13:01.500]exactly the same amount of manure
[00:13:03.070]across this entire swath width.
[00:13:05.270]But we know that's not usually the case,
[00:13:07.850]even with the brand new system,
[00:13:10.940]that's often not the case.
[00:13:16.250]So, if we wanna optimize the uniformity
[00:13:18.120]of our application, we need to understand
[00:13:20.450]how much manure is applied at each point
[00:13:22.530]across that swath width.
[00:13:24.450]So, one of the simplest ways to do this
[00:13:27.160]with a liquid or slurry spreader
[00:13:30.630]is to measure that depth of application using rain gauges.
[00:13:37.230]So in this image, we have a field
[00:13:40.090]where we're going to apply liquid manure.
[00:13:42.220]There's four rain gauges that have been stuck in the ground
[00:13:46.670]and we had a spreader with a 40 foot wide swath width
[00:13:53.400]and so we placed our rain gauges.
[00:13:57.180]The one on the right is kind of at the center-line
[00:13:59.320]of the The tanker as it's going to travel across there
[00:14:02.750]and then seven feet 14 and 20 feet
[00:14:06.190]out from that center-line.
[00:14:08.930]And so then we would operate the manure spreader
[00:14:11.740]at our speed and settings that we determined
[00:14:13.560]during the calibration and run that across
[00:14:17.770]those rain gauges, start at several feet
[00:14:19.980]before we get to them and run on beyond those
[00:14:22.810]for several feet.
[00:14:23.643]So, let's see if we can take a look at the video
[00:14:27.300]of this particular application that we did.
[00:14:32.756](tractor engine revving)
[00:15:03.550]Okay, so after the spreader has passed over the rain gauges,
[00:15:06.600]which are, you can kind of see in the lower
[00:15:09.330]left hand corner of this picture on the left,
[00:15:12.430]we would want to go back and measure the depth
[00:15:15.850]of the manure in each of those rain gauges and record that.
[00:15:24.160]So, for this particular system that we were testing,
[00:15:28.680]we found a pretty linear change
[00:15:33.911]in the application depth
[00:15:35.530]as we went from the center of the travel path
[00:15:37.770]out to the edge.
[00:15:38.603]So in the very center, we were getting an half an inch
[00:15:41.870]of application, quarter of an inch out at seven feet
[00:15:45.760]and then down to an eighth of an inch
[00:15:47.130]and nothing beyond the 20 feet.
[00:15:50.830]And that's kind of what we would expect to find
[00:15:52.500]with a broadcast system like this but this data
[00:15:57.670]allowed us to look at how we might align
[00:16:02.360]our spreader during each pass in order to get a better,
[00:16:05.700]more even application rate.
[00:16:07.000]So, it's easy to argue that we would not want
[00:16:10.530]to line the next pass of the spreader up
[00:16:13.220]with the outer edge of the path that we traveled
[00:16:16.500]for this one because out of our edges,
[00:16:19.060]we're going to have significantly less nutrient application
[00:16:23.203]than at the center of our pass
[00:16:25.863]and that would not be acceptable.
[00:16:28.210]But this is a good reason for overlapping
[00:16:32.550]our application passes to help us improve uniformity
[00:16:36.560]and in this case, we decided that about one third
[00:16:40.140]to one half of that pass width would be a good amount
[00:16:44.380]to overlap so that we get a more even application
[00:16:47.970]across our field.
[00:16:55.000]This is just some data from this particular test
[00:17:00.120]and what we were doing was not only monitoring
[00:17:04.060]the uniformity of our application but we wanted to look
[00:17:07.500]at the nutrient content
[00:17:09.880]among the various loads of manure that we pumped.
[00:17:13.420]And so we also took samples from each load
[00:17:16.550]and looked at the consistency in those characteristics
[00:17:20.470]among loads.
[00:17:23.240]So the data in the bottom table here
[00:17:26.140]shows that the product was pretty consistent among loads.
[00:17:31.585]This was beef manure that was applied
[00:17:34.420]from a slurry pit and that pit
[00:17:37.150]had been very well mixed before it was pumped
[00:17:40.630]the first time and during the pumping,
[00:17:42.850]so each time that we pulled another load from there,
[00:17:46.350]it was still being mixed.
[00:17:47.400]So that definitely contributed
[00:17:48.800]to a very good consistency in our product
[00:17:52.200]that was being applied.
[00:17:53.510]So that's important to keep in mind
[00:17:55.740]when pumping liquid manure is that the nutrients
[00:17:59.920]can vary quite a bit as the pit is emptied
[00:18:02.690]or whether it's being mixed at the time
[00:18:05.140]or has been mixed in and just being allowed to settle.
[00:18:08.230]So that's important to keep in mind
[00:18:10.330]to improve the uniformity of nutrient application
[00:18:13.410]across a field.
[00:18:17.940]So now let's look at solid spreader calibration.
[00:18:21.590]And, again, there's a number of ways to determine
[00:18:27.200]how much manure is applied
[00:18:30.650]with the solid manure spreader.
[00:18:34.330]The volume-area and the weight-area methods
[00:18:36.440]that we just talked about for the liquid spreader,
[00:18:39.410]those can be used but another method
[00:18:41.750]that we use and that we'll show here is called tarp method.
[00:18:48.380]And the basic premise here is that the tarp
[00:18:52.480]is laid out in the field and in the travel path
[00:18:55.840]of the spreader and then the spreader
[00:18:58.373]goes along and applies manure
[00:19:00.760]and then we weigh how much is falling on this tarp.
[00:19:06.040]One thing to keep in mind,
[00:19:07.240]you don't wanna run over the tarp
[00:19:09.290]when the spreader goes through the field
[00:19:11.160]so you'll want to align it
[00:19:12.520]so that it's not in the wheel tracks
[00:19:14.350]of where the spreader will travel.
[00:19:17.620]Another kind of key thing here that makes the calculation
[00:19:22.710]a lot easier is to use a tarp that is cut
[00:19:27.730]so that it has an area of 22 square feet.
[00:19:30.760]So this makes the conversion
[00:19:33.250]from pounds per square foot into tons per acre very simple.
[00:19:37.570]And based on the size of that, it makes it such that
[00:19:41.350]when you weigh the manure on the tarp in pounds,
[00:19:45.880]that value will equal your application rate
[00:19:48.220]in tons per acre.
[00:19:50.040]So, you can certainly use other sizes of tarps
[00:19:52.610]but then there's quite a few calculations
[00:19:54.580]to convert the weight of manure per square foot to tons
[00:19:58.490]of manure per acre.
[00:20:02.680]So, we recommend laying out at least three tarps in a line,
[00:20:08.550]where that truck is going to travel
[00:20:10.560]because we want to get an average application rate
[00:20:13.140]across that distance and it can change
[00:20:15.610]a little bit as a truck changes speed.
[00:20:19.720]Again, we wanna start applying the manure
[00:20:23.180]before we get to the tarps
[00:20:24.500]and then maintain a consistent consistent speed
[00:20:27.340]across all of those tarps.
[00:20:29.344]And so we'll watch this video of an application.
[00:20:35.668](truck engine revving)
[00:20:47.140]So hopefully, you're able to see
[00:20:48.400]that it passed over three different tarps
[00:20:52.300]as it went along there and those were kind of hard
[00:20:54.070]to see, they're kind of the same color as the ground
[00:20:56.850]but after the spreader had passed over the three of those,
[00:21:02.710]then the next step was to go and pick up
[00:21:04.710]each of the tarps and be careful not to spill
[00:21:07.810]any manure off of it.
[00:21:09.750]And then kind of fold that tarp
[00:21:11.370]and put it in a five gallon bucket
[00:21:13.130]and you can use a fishing scale, that works well,
[00:21:16.780]to hook the bucket around the handle,
[00:21:18.870]lift it up and measure the weight of that bucket.
[00:21:23.420]And then once we know the weight of the bucket
[00:21:27.470]with the manure and the tarp and everything included,
[00:21:32.140]we would want to subtract the weight
[00:21:34.180]of just the the bucket with the tarp in it
[00:21:36.680]and that would leave us with a weight of the manure
[00:21:40.040]that was applied to the area of that tarp.
[00:21:44.810]So again, as long as your tarp is 22 square feet in area,
[00:21:48.774]you don't need to do any conversion.
[00:21:50.980]In this case, we measured, if you can see
[00:21:57.675]on the scale,
[00:21:58.640]it weighed 14 point pounds.
[00:22:01.400]That was the bucket, the tarp and the manure
[00:22:03.890]and then once we dumped out the manure
[00:22:05.977]and just weighed the bucket and tarp,
[00:22:08.070]those weighed 1.8 pounds and so subtracting that
[00:22:12.730]from 14.8 gives an application rate of 13 tons per acre.
[00:22:18.890]You can see the tarps in the background
[00:22:20.645]that has some of the manure distributed on it.
[00:22:23.000]And then over on the left was another run that we did
[00:22:26.130]and very similar application rate in that one.
[00:22:33.220]So again, in this particular situation,
[00:22:36.490]we were targeting an application rate of 15 to 20 tons
[00:22:40.620]per acre, so on our first couple of passes,
[00:22:44.630]we were a little below that 15.
[00:22:47.260]But we were fairly accurate
[00:22:49.290]but we did make some adjustments
[00:22:52.570]to improve our actual rate of application and so again,
[00:22:56.590]I would invite the onsite host to pause the video briefly
[00:23:00.550]and then allow some discussion
[00:23:03.160]among those of you in attendance about what adjustments
[00:23:06.410]you might make in this particular scenario,
[00:23:09.180]if you wanted to do achieve twice as much
[00:23:12.660]or half as much application rate
[00:23:14.400]as what we actually found here.
[00:23:29.270]Okay, welcome back again.
[00:23:31.550]I hope you had some good discussion again.
[00:23:34.370]Let's go on and look at some of our data from this event
[00:23:39.210]and talk about what we found
[00:23:41.290]in terms of nutrient consistency and application rate.
[00:23:46.210]So we applied five loads of bedded beef manure
[00:23:50.610]and we measured the application rate
[00:23:52.640]using the tarp method, with three tarps used per load
[00:23:56.710]and then we also collected manure from each tarp
[00:23:59.160]and composited those to make a sample
[00:24:02.670]that we could have analyzed for each load to compare
[00:24:06.210]nutrient value among different loads.
[00:24:09.720]And so, you can see in the top table
[00:24:14.690]that there was some, quite a bit of variability
[00:24:17.340]among our application rates for each load.
[00:24:23.130]We ended up with an average
[00:24:25.040]right in there where we wanted to be,
[00:24:26.520]we were shooting for 15 to 20 tons per acre
[00:24:30.460]but there's quite a bit of variability
[00:24:31.940]from our lowest rate of 13.6 tons per acre
[00:24:35.860]to our highest of 28.8 tons
[00:24:40.200]and we didn't have much trouble figuring out
[00:24:42.330]why this was.
[00:24:43.220]The operator running the spreader
[00:24:45.800]said he forgot to shift into second year
[00:24:48.040]on loads two, three and four.
[00:24:50.270]So he was traveling a lot slower, about half the speed
[00:24:54.000]that he intended to and so we got about twice
[00:24:56.540]as much manure applied
[00:25:00.340]than we were shooting for so,
[00:25:05.466]we know that we can make some adjustments easily there
[00:25:09.560]to pay a little closer attention
[00:25:11.430]to how that manure spreader is being operated
[00:25:13.620]and achieve the rates that we were trying to achieve.
[00:25:18.870]One other thing that we expected
[00:25:22.650]to affect our uniformity was the consistency
[00:25:25.300]of the manure being applied.
[00:25:27.880]So you can see here, it's kind of hard to tell
[00:25:31.170]in the picture but there were some chunks of manure
[00:25:35.090]in this product that were bowling ball size
[00:25:38.640]and maybe even a little bit larger than that
[00:25:41.190]and the reason we have such an inconsistent sizing
[00:25:45.959]of the manure that was coming out of that spreader
[00:25:49.320]is that the temperature had been below freezing
[00:25:51.930]for several days before this application
[00:25:54.180]and so there were some large chunks
[00:25:56.040]of frozen manure remaining in the pile.
[00:26:00.930]We anticipated that since this manure
[00:26:04.560]was coming from a bedded beef barn
[00:26:06.780]and they were just pulling loads out
[00:26:08.610]from that barn and not mixing loads together,
[00:26:14.418]we thought that there could be some pretty significant
[00:26:17.560]variability in nutrient concentrations of the manure
[00:26:21.060]taken from different areas of the barn
[00:26:25.810]but you can see in our data in the bottom table,
[00:26:29.590]we had pretty consistent nutrient values
[00:26:34.530]for our nitrogen, our phosphorus and potassium and sulphur.
[00:26:38.570]And so, really when we look at this particular situation,
[00:26:45.880]we can see that what really caused variability
[00:26:48.670]in our uniformity of application
[00:26:51.320]was the variability in our application rate.
[00:26:56.300]So again, you put on twice as much manure
[00:27:01.032]and it's got the same nutrient value
[00:27:02.730]between the two loads, you're really
[00:27:05.200]essentially doubling your nutrient application
[00:27:08.790]with that higher application rate.
[00:27:11.250]So, we know that this could be easily corrected
[00:27:14.580]by maintaining the correct travel speed.
[00:27:17.150]So there really weren't other adjustments
[00:27:19.180]that we needed to make.
[00:27:24.570]So, if you decide to use the volume or the weight method,
[00:27:31.090]as opposed to doing the tarp method like we did,
[00:27:34.700]you'll need to calculate the volume or weigh the amount
[00:27:39.240]of manure that's in your spreader.
[00:27:45.790]The volume that you actually come up with
[00:27:47.540]is going to be dependent on whether
[00:27:49.520]you fill that spreader to level load or a piled load.
[00:27:55.770]So, there's two equations here
[00:27:57.650]that show how to calculate your volume
[00:28:01.040]based on a level load versus a piled load
[00:28:06.360]and again, these values will be in feet,
[00:28:09.000]your length and width and depth.
[00:28:10.720]So when you do the calculation,
[00:28:12.480]you'll have total cubic feet
[00:28:14.560]of manure in your spreader.
[00:28:17.620]Again, we don't usually see manure analyses
[00:28:21.200]that are based on cubic feet
[00:28:23.270]of manure applied, we usually talk in tons per acre
[00:28:28.810]of applications.
[00:28:29.740]So again, we'll need to figure out the density
[00:28:33.770]of our manure, similar to how we talked
[00:28:36.530]about doing that with the liquid manure
[00:28:39.690]and then we'll take our volume in cubic feet,
[00:28:42.680]multiply that by our density,
[00:28:45.430]which is in pounds per cubic feet
[00:28:47.650]and then divide that by 2000,
[00:28:49.420]so that we get tons of manure in that load.
[00:29:00.750]So I hope these examples of the calibration measurements
[00:29:04.470]and adjustments help you kind of visualize
[00:29:07.530]and think about how you might calibrate
[00:29:09.080]your manure spreaders the next time you apply manure.
[00:29:12.660]I know we went through it fairly quickly,
[00:29:14.190]everything that we went through in this talk
[00:29:16.400]can be reviewed in a written guide
[00:29:20.040]to manure spreader calibration
[00:29:21.343]that is available
[00:29:22.520]from the Animal Manure Management Team's website.
[00:29:26.860]If you go to manure.unl.edu
[00:29:29.510]and search for manure calibration,
[00:29:31.700]you'll find that guide and I think that resource
[00:29:36.380]should also be in your training folder
[00:29:38.910]but if not, this is where you can find it online.
[00:29:44.280]The other thing I would like to mention
[00:29:45.760]is that we do have calibration kits
[00:29:49.350]at a number of offices throughout the state
[00:29:52.070]and at some of our NRD offices as well.
[00:29:55.260]And so, these kits would provide you with the tarps
[00:29:58.790]and scale a wheel for measuring
[00:30:02.819]travel distance
[00:30:04.810]and as well as some worksheets for doing a calibration
[00:30:09.870]for either a liquid or a solid manure spreader.
[00:30:18.840]So, we realize that performing a spreader calibration
[00:30:23.410]can be a bit daunting the first time,
[00:30:26.180]we certainly encourage you to reach out to us
[00:30:28.290]if you need help performing a calibration.
[00:30:31.250]I've included my contact information here
[00:30:33.520]and that of one of my fellow manure colleagues on campus,
[00:30:37.180]Rick Koelsch and so you're welcome to reach out
[00:30:39.680]to one of us but you can also contact
[00:30:42.000]your local extension office for help.
[00:30:44.600]And with that,
[00:30:46.210]I thank you for your attention
[00:30:48.050]and encourage you to keep spreading manure responsibly

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Optimizing Manure Application Rates and Uniformity

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