Reducing Nitrate Leaching with Manure Application

University of Nebraska – Lincoln Author

08/31/2020 Added

8 Plays

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Todd Whitney looks at a replicated research study of adding manure and wood chips and the impact of soil organic matter and physical properties. Also looks at the form of nitrogen fertilizer and its impact on nitrate leaching
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[00:00:07.095](upbeat music)
[00:00:18.370]Hello, this is Todd Whitney.
[00:00:19.830]I'm an Extension Educator based in Holdrege Nebraska.
[00:00:22.740]And with me today is Sarah Sivits,
[00:00:24.080]Extension Educator based in Lexington.
[00:00:26.270]We're at a Nebraska Environmental Trust Site
[00:00:29.730]for Doug Luther.
[00:00:30.850]Who's a cooperator here in the Overton area.
[00:00:33.830]We have three treatments that were applied here
[00:00:35.840]on April 9th. The first one is
[00:00:38.280]a manure application(tractor spreading manure)
[00:00:39.470]from a local Feedlot source.
[00:00:41.980]The second is a Manure plus a Cedar Chip Mulch.
[00:00:45.310]And the third one is your commercial fertilizer practice
[00:00:48.470]that we'd probably be seeing in this area.
[00:00:51.300]In the state.
[00:00:52.133]We've had a big problem with Eastern red cedar.
[00:00:55.150]And so the idea behind this
[00:00:56.530]is to take those Eastern red cedars,
[00:00:59.020]chop them up the small chop particles,
[00:01:02.340]and then be able to combine those into the mulch
[00:01:05.650]that could have a beneficial effect
[00:01:07.390]to making the right carbon-nitrogen ratio.
[00:01:09.820]Before applications were made and treatments were applied.
[00:01:12.690]Soil course were taken in order to
[00:01:15.010]look at baseline fertility levels
[00:01:17.980]later on in the growing season,
[00:01:19.440]what's gonna happen collecting yield, monitor data.
[00:01:22.740]So that way it's easier to harvest.
[00:01:24.990]And then we will also be taking more soil samples.
[00:01:27.510]And then also see if there's any economic return.
[00:01:31.140]Since this is the first year
[00:01:32.410]for this study location,
[00:01:33.490]we don't have any data to share for results at this site.
[00:01:36.210]However, there were several of these manure
[00:01:38.050]and mulch studies conducted around the state
[00:01:40.180]during the 2019 growing season at those studies.
[00:01:43.490]After the first year one site had a significant increase
[00:01:46.650]in soil organic matter, soil pH, nitrates,
[00:01:49.530]P and K levels increased in the top soil layer
[00:01:53.200]with the application of manure at two of the three sites.
[00:01:56.710]Although wood chips and manure affected sorptivity
[00:01:59.640]and aggregation at one of the sites,
[00:02:01.750]more applications might be needed
[00:02:03.300]to change soil physical properties.
[00:02:05.540]And finally crop yield was not affected by the replacement
[00:02:08.520]of inorganic fertilizer for an organic source.
[00:02:11.597](tractor spreading manure) These sites will be continuing on
[00:02:12.840]in the next several years
[00:02:13.990]and we will keep sharing the results of these studies.
[00:02:16.350]So that's all for this week.
[00:02:17.410]We'll be back next Friday for a virtual field day,
[00:02:19.710]looking at another Nebraska
[00:02:21.060]on farm research network project.
[00:02:22.753](upbeat music)
[00:02:26.630]Our Nebraska Extension manure management team
[00:02:29.340]has been working with the Environmental Trust.
[00:02:31.440]The past two years to come up with a project
[00:02:33.770]that's going to help on the beneficial effects
[00:02:36.580]potentially of using a carbon source of wood chips,
[00:02:41.360]combined with manure to have a beneficial effect
[00:02:44.600]on building up the microbes in the soil.
[00:02:47.910]We're going be looking at some of those effects,
[00:02:50.280]how that might potentially be helping.
[00:02:52.420]One of those ways is by building organic matter in the soil,
[00:02:55.560]the hope is that we can help hold a lot of those nutrients
[00:02:59.190]especially nitrogen on the soil and have less effective
[00:03:02.750]at moving off of the land and the erosion.
[00:03:05.940]And then we're also gonna be looking at how do we help
[00:03:09.150]keep that nitrogen and more of the ammonium form,
[00:03:12.650]which is less likely to leach than with the going into
[00:03:16.070]the nitrate form, a lot of our commercial fertilizers
[00:03:19.200]are very available.
[00:03:20.580]And so it's more likely that they will convert into
[00:03:24.530]a nitrate form that can leach.
[00:03:26.860]Whereas if we can keep it in an organic form of nitrogen
[00:03:30.660]moreless likely to have that problem.
[00:03:33.290]I've already put one round of water through here.
[00:03:37.510]What I'm gonna do is put another amount of water in
[00:03:41.520]our first one came from the field
[00:03:43.640]from Doug Luther is our producer
[00:03:46.470]that's over in the Overton area.
[00:03:49.030]And he has allowed us to use a corn field
[00:03:52.710]where we have applied manure in some sections
[00:03:56.660]and then manure wood chips.
[00:03:58.100]This is just one year of study,
[00:04:00.060]but we're gonna see if there's been some effect
[00:04:02.550]of how that(pouring water) beneficial attack
[00:04:05.160]has started to come in.
[00:04:06.649](water pouring)
[00:04:08.020]So to start off with,
[00:04:09.580]we have a ceiling that's happened on this soil,
[00:04:12.310]and you can see that we're having difficulty leaving
[00:04:15.860]a lot of the water in into
[00:04:19.760]our desktop simulator.
[00:04:22.470]The next one is where we've have some manure,
[00:04:25.320]we're hopeful that the manure,(pouring water)
[00:04:26.970]where it has the nitrogen is actually feeding some of the
[00:04:29.660]microbes, maybe having more of a tendency of building
[00:04:33.020]some of the organic matter. And again,
[00:04:35.450]it's just been one year of the study that we do feel like
[00:04:38.700]that we are getting maybe a little less sediment
[00:04:42.800]that's coming off of the field and in our first one,
[00:04:45.380]and then the third one,
[00:04:46.550]we're gonna be giving a demonstration(pouring water)
[00:04:48.953]that this is where
[00:04:49.786]we have combined the Cedar Chips along with the manure
[00:04:53.967]And we're hopeful that will again,
[00:04:56.160]we'll have a long range of(indistinct)
[00:04:58.572]where we can build the organic matter
[00:05:00.680]and keep more of the water on the surface.
[00:05:07.270]Our next phase is what we're going to be looking at
[00:05:09.820]is where we're gonna be looking at the columns.
[00:05:12.360]And we're gonna be thinking about how can we help
[00:05:15.200]keep that nitrogen in the organic form.
[00:05:19.270]So it's less likely to leach.
[00:05:21.240]This is the negative solution has EOC in red,
[00:05:25.220]which represents(pressure escaping) nitrate nitrogen.
[00:05:28.059](opening lid)
[00:05:30.000]And we gonna watch how the charge affects
[00:05:34.670]what goes through into the swale.(pouring solution)
[00:05:37.181]So pour this to the top.(closing lid)
[00:05:42.720]Then I'm gonna take Methylene blue,
[00:05:44.200]which has a positive charge,
[00:05:45.690]which would be more like ammonium nitrogen.(opening lid)
[00:05:48.644]Then pour it into number one.(pouring ammonium nitrogen)
[00:05:54.362]and fill it to the top,
[00:05:55.600]And we will watch what happens
[00:05:57.200]with positive charge in the soil. (closing lid)
[00:06:03.167]And this is(shaking tin)a combination of two of the two,
[00:06:05.600]which would be something like you would find more
[00:06:07.550]in ammonium nitrate fertilizer.(opening lid)
[00:06:10.210]It's gonna have both ammonium nitrogen
[00:06:12.070]and nitrate nitrogen.
[00:06:14.460]And we'll watch what happens in the soil(pouring)
[00:06:17.540]with those charges.
[00:06:22.729](closing lid)
[00:06:27.910]So what we're doing here is showing
[00:06:29.790]how the different interactions happen within the soil.
[00:06:33.500]In the center is where we have both the positive
[00:06:36.040]and negative charge.
[00:06:37.420]When we look over on the left, we have the methyl blue,
[00:06:39.960]which is representation of an ammonium nitrate,
[00:06:43.460]which would be the form of nitrogen where we have it
[00:06:46.010]bound in the organic matter.
[00:06:48.580]So it's less likely to be moving down through the soil.
[00:06:52.770]As opposed to the SDN red, which is over on the right,
[00:06:57.470]which would give a depiction of a really
[00:07:01.090]negative charged soil.
[00:07:03.840]And when we have commercial fertilizer
[00:07:06.210]is gonna move down through the soil.
[00:07:08.290]It's also very available for the plant to take up
[00:07:10.860]with its roots.
[00:07:12.530]But the challenge of that is commercial fertilizers
[00:07:15.770]are very available,
[00:07:17.010]but if we don't have roots to take it in,
[00:07:19.130]then it's gonna keep moving down through the profile.
[00:07:21.800]In the center, we have that combination product,
[00:07:24.060]and we think that probably could be a help for us
[00:07:26.470]as we're moving forward,
[00:07:27.900]that we have some commercial fertilizer
[00:07:29.870]that's gonna be very available the front part.
[00:07:32.650]And then we have like a slow release fertilizer
[00:07:34.910]in our organic matter. We're as seen where it can hold that.
[00:07:39.200]So that's available for later in the growing season.
[00:07:42.860]So what we're doing here is just showing that by using
[00:07:45.540]a combination of commercial fertilizer
[00:07:47.990]and also using org organic fertilizers,
[00:07:51.150]we're able to have that slow release effect.

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Reducing Nitrate Leaching with Manure Application

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