Finding Solutions to Land Application Barriers

Rick Koelsch Author

03/05/2021 Added

38 Plays

Description

From "Benefits & Barriers to Manure Use" portion of Land Application Training 2021

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:00.640]We're going to jump
[00:00:02.090]into a short discussion around barriers of manure.
[00:00:06.410]We asked this same question.
[00:00:09.100]We had a total of 35 potential challenges
[00:00:12.520]and asked people to identify their top challenges.
[00:00:16.320]And this was a nationwide survey.
[00:00:18.870]There was over 800 people
[00:00:21.520]in advisory roles,
[00:00:23.120]crop farmers,
[00:00:23.953]livestock farmers that participated in the survey.
[00:00:28.020]And maybe just focus up here at the top.
[00:00:31.620]Transportation and application costs was the number
[00:00:34.658]one barrier that this group identified.
[00:00:37.980]And it was true for all three
[00:00:39.820]of those audiences there
[00:00:42.210]for cropped farmers,
[00:00:43.680]and advisers odors was
[00:00:45.430]the second highest ranked issue.
[00:00:50.020]And then you can kind of see them going
[00:00:51.970]from there. On fuel conditions
[00:00:55.070]was four or two depending upon the audience.
[00:00:57.710]And that was our top one tonight.
[00:01:00.900]Let's see compaction.
[00:01:03.810]I'm not sure.
[00:01:04.643]Yeah, that showed up as number six, cross the boards.
[00:01:07.860]So that was pretty high on many people's view.
[00:01:10.570]Water quality impairment
[00:01:12.160]I think, let's see that showed
[00:01:14.160]up as number 10 among the advisors.
[00:01:16.410]It was not in the top 10 list
[00:01:18.640]for farmers in that particular survey.
[00:01:22.330]Well, I expect this
[00:01:23.770]answer is going to be a little bit different
[00:01:25.350]for each of us and a lot depends
[00:01:27.120]upon the situation, the neighborhood that we live in, the
[00:01:31.460]the water resources that we're connected with and so forth.
[00:01:36.510]What I would suggest though
[00:01:39.010]that it is a worthwhile exercise to go through working
[00:01:42.730]with manure of identifying what are the top challenges
[00:01:49.380]for your farm that often become a barriers
[00:01:52.850]to manure being used in some fields and trying to piece
[00:01:57.160]through a strategy that will minimize that being a barrier.
[00:02:03.400]And I'm only going to have time to do this
[00:02:05.570]for a couple of examples that I'm going to
[00:02:08.270]pick the top two that are listed here tonight.
[00:02:12.270]And we'll walk through those very briefly
[00:02:15.860]but it's important that you pick your top issues
[00:02:20.090]and come up with a strategy specific to those issues.
[00:02:25.820]We're going to return again to this,
[00:02:30.746]our calculation
[00:02:31.579]of the value of manure, and now ask
[00:02:33.930]can we afford to haul manure
[00:02:35.640]to these little bit more distant fields.
[00:02:38.680]And I think this is equally as important
[00:02:41.553]an exercise for you to walk your way through.
[00:02:45.980]I'm going to use some values that may
[00:02:48.160]or may not represent the cost that you would add
[00:02:50.860]for transporting manure, but trying to come
[00:02:53.650]up with a value for your farm
[00:02:55.740]I think is a worthwhile exercise to take from time to time.
[00:03:01.110]Now, what I want to do is jump let's see.
[00:03:05.600]Yeah, I guess we'll just stay for right here for now.
[00:03:10.990]So for those three fields
[00:03:14.340]we're going to use some numbers that are shared
[00:03:17.110]with us by SECI Agra services.
[00:03:19.890]This is a, a rate that they are paying commercial appliers
[00:03:27.150]or commercial applicators of manure for application costs
[00:03:32.080]and transportation costs. Their about a year old.
[00:03:36.220]We got these November of 2019
[00:03:38.680]and this was the rates they were playing paying
[00:03:41.420]through the winter of 2020.
[00:03:44.490]Now I'm going to use these two
[00:03:47.840]the estimated cost going to those three fields.
[00:03:51.880]One of those fields was about
[00:03:53.542]we were applying 20 tons to the acre.
[00:03:56.240]So let's do that for the application costs
[00:03:59.840]and using their rates from a year ago at 20 ton
[00:04:05.300]per acre rate was about a $4 per time cost or $80 per acre.
[00:04:12.060]So that is one part of the cost.
[00:04:15.520]And the second part of the cost is the transportation cost.
[00:04:19.670]It's a cost to move that extra mile or extra several miles.
[00:04:23.990]For that one mile distance to that first VOD field
[00:04:29.290]it was about $45 an acre
[00:04:32.440]for traveling about three to four miles
[00:04:36.800]or looking at across
[00:04:38.010]that was closer to $3 per ton, $60 per acre.
[00:04:44.120]So with those numbers
[00:04:49.235]I can now go back to this example
[00:04:52.960]and put them here on the screen.
[00:04:56.440]So, add up my transportation
[00:04:59.900]and my application costs for Von.
[00:05:02.890]It comes out to the cost of $125 to achieve a value
[00:05:07.690]of a hundred dollars
[00:05:11.690]for the North tillers.
[00:05:14.430]So $140 per acre cost, and
[00:05:19.404]for roughly the same cost to get it delivered
[00:05:23.530]to the South tillers, maybe just a little bit more
[00:05:26.150]I might've underestimated
[00:05:28.414]or overestimated the cost for the North tillers.
[00:05:31.440]So here's our three cost
[00:05:34.440]and our value.
[00:05:36.510]And now by comparing these two numbers, I have some idea
[00:05:40.990]as to where I might want to haul minority
[00:05:45.180]at least get the value from a nutrient benefit.
[00:05:51.960]Now, I might also want to ask what would be
[00:05:54.530]the soil quality value, soil health value going
[00:05:58.000]to each of these three fields?
[00:05:59.850]Is there one that has a lower organic matter
[00:06:03.222]maybe has a history of tillage?
[00:06:05.780]And so organic matter is lower
[00:06:08.030]lower microbial activity in the soil,
[00:06:13.210]more drought gnats.
[00:06:14.580]So that might change this in your own mind
[00:06:17.550]but now I've got at least some idea which
[00:06:20.950]of these fields going to give me some greater value
[00:06:23.870]over others and just looking
[00:06:25.670]at the nutrient value versus the cost moving manure.
[00:06:29.900]It might suggest that North
[00:06:32.220]and South tillers have have some advantages.
[00:06:35.490]So it's an exercise.
[00:06:37.280]I encourage you to go through, try to come up
[00:06:40.830]with some cost of transportation for, for your own equipment
[00:06:46.620]or use these if you have nothing better
[00:06:48.760]but use this as a starting point to try to decide where you
[00:06:55.350]how far you can transfer manure.
[00:06:58.510]I'd like you to just crop into the chat box,
[00:07:02.200]if you wouldn't mind.
[00:07:05.730]How far are you,
[00:07:07.639]you feel, for your farm,
[00:07:09.760]you can transport manure and you might put, besides that
[00:07:13.640]am I dealing with the, a, B solid manure
[00:07:17.358]a swine slurry manure, but just
[00:07:21.720]for your own current perspective, not, not having gone
[00:07:25.130]through this, how far do you think you can transport manure
[00:07:29.180]and get value today?
[00:07:31.990]I think we have seen over the last decade
[00:07:36.871]a significant change in many people's attitudes
[00:07:40.200]to how far we can move manure
[00:07:43.020]especially with our dry manures.
[00:07:46.447]We now are talking oftentimes in that 10 miles
[00:07:48.740]maybe even more in some cases
[00:07:51.300]with our slurry manures or liquid manures
[00:07:54.770]we're probably only talking one to three mile range
[00:07:57.810]that we would be willing to move all of that, that volume.
[00:08:01.320]But I think we're seeing a continuing shift
[00:08:05.650]and it's from going through exercise
[00:08:07.510]like we've just gone through here of, of what is that cost?
[00:08:12.540]What is that value and recognizing we can move further
[00:08:16.970]and sometimes we would originally anticipate.
[00:08:21.057]So, I encourage you to go through that exercise
[00:08:23.050]and try to come up with some reasonable estimates and
[00:08:26.200]and just to see what that is for your particular farm.
[00:08:29.990]So, transportation costs, is it truly too expensive to go
[00:08:35.320]to some of those more distant fields?
[00:08:38.515]And walking through this strategy, I think, has value.
[00:08:44.520]Okay, uh
[00:08:46.940]There is also values in that PowerPoint handout.
[00:08:50.520]If you'd like to look at that for story manures
[00:08:53.120]we're going to skip by that.
[00:08:55.090]The second issue that some of us encounter are associated
[00:08:59.680]with neighbors, and a variety of neighbor issues.
[00:09:02.710]We're going to talk about odors in particular and
[00:09:07.810]in trying to manage odors associated with land application
[00:09:13.810]of manure, really only two strategies that we
[00:09:18.150]have an option to use probably the most effective is
[00:09:22.151]if it's available to us, is we'd like to move that manure
[00:09:26.520]into the soil as soil is a great aerobic environment,
[00:09:31.000]a great filter, and perfect place for stabilizing manure,
[00:09:36.810]and preventing odors from being released into the soil.
[00:09:40.190]It's great until you look at the cover that's
[00:09:42.980]on top of that soil, and many of us would say, gee
[00:09:45.880]that covers pretty valuable to us
[00:09:47.640]in terms of wind or soil or water erosion.
[00:09:51.830]And so, incorporating manure
[00:09:54.060]into the soil may not be an option for many of us,
[00:09:57.330]especially those that use the solid manure
[00:10:01.995]So, if that's our case
[00:10:04.810]there is a second tool I would suggest that you consider
[00:10:09.890]and that's selecting fields that you're going to
[00:10:13.360]apply manure on for any single day based
[00:10:17.957]upon what's the odor risk to that field.
[00:10:22.670]And I would suggest to you that
[00:10:25.220]with a weather report for the next three to five days
[00:10:29.280]we can make some really good determinations as
[00:10:33.270]to which field am I going to have a high odor risk
[00:10:36.670]in that field, which fields I will not.
[00:10:39.500]And let's walk through that process.
[00:10:45.575]So, I like to use this graphic to remind us
[00:10:51.380]how odor travels.
[00:10:53.700]Odor and smoke are very similar in terms
[00:10:57.520]of whether they rise into the upper atmosphere
[00:11:01.180]and disperse, and dilute quickly, like we're seeing
[00:11:04.680]on the left-hand side, or whether they travel horizontally.
[00:11:10.090]Now we see the smoke here rising
[00:11:12.960]because it's probably caused by a fire
[00:11:15.210]that's got heat in the air right in that area.
[00:11:19.109]But as soon as that air cools
[00:11:19.980]to what the air temperature is in general, or that area
[00:11:23.720]that smoke is traveling horizontally
[00:11:27.010]in that right-hand picture.
[00:11:30.260]Now think about when you see smoke rising
[00:11:34.660]versus traveling horizontally
[00:11:37.370]and what are the conditions that causes one
[00:11:39.660]versus the other? Give some thought to that.
[00:11:43.330]When have you spotted those conditions?
[00:11:48.820]Here's the most common conditions that allow smoke disperse
[00:11:53.810]on the left-hand side. Sunny skies, warming, temperatures
[00:11:59.926]warming temperatures, cause that air to be more buoyant
[00:12:02.170]to rise, carry that smoke,
[00:12:05.030]or that odor cloud away from our neighbors.
[00:12:09.690]The conditions that cause us the greatest risk are evening
[00:12:13.970]and are nighttime hours when temperatures are dropping,
[00:12:18.150]or holding steady.
[00:12:19.940]And that's when we tend to trap smoke or odor
[00:12:24.550]near the Earth's surface.
[00:12:26.220]Near where our neighbors experience.
[00:12:29.270]So, recognizing those conditions that cause that high risk
[00:12:34.010]on the right-hand side, we can forecast when that's going to
[00:12:37.890]occur and what fields might cause us the problem.
[00:12:43.690]So, the high risk conditions always occur in the evening
[00:12:49.240]or nighttime hours.
[00:12:52.928]If I have very low cloud cover,
[00:12:56.510]less than 50% on a clear night
[00:13:00.340]that high-risk condition extends over a wider range
[00:13:05.700]of wind speeds.
[00:13:07.040]So anything less than 11 mile per hour is high risk
[00:13:12.340]for clear skies, anything less than seven miles
[00:13:16.140]per hour is high risk for cloudy skies
[00:13:20.160]all during the nighttime conditions.
[00:13:22.660]During the daytime, if you look here,
[00:13:25.840]all of that, those conditions are
[00:13:34.391]are low risk, or very low risk.
[00:13:36.740]So here's, here's our red flags that we're watching for
[00:13:41.900]high nighttime conditions, and lower wind speeds.
[00:13:47.530]Okay. Let's use that information with that weather forecast.
[00:13:54.420]Now let's figure out when we have high risk conditions.
[00:13:59.560]Take a look at the first night,
[00:14:02.870]right through here
[00:14:07.100]and now nighttime conditions.
[00:14:09.160]What's our wind speed?
[00:14:12.489]Wind speed.
[00:14:13.322]Nine six two two.
[00:14:14.880]So here is high risk.
[00:14:20.010]The night of October 2nd is a high-risk evening.
[00:14:26.960]Look at our next night, October 3rd
[00:14:29.730]going into the morning of October 4th here.
[00:14:34.474]Wind speeds 18, 19, 18 mile per hour.
[00:14:38.700]High speed winds, good dilution from wind speed.
[00:14:43.498]Not much risk to our neighbors.
[00:14:46.890]So now how do we use that?
[00:14:48.990]Okay, well, we're probably gonna apply our manure
[00:14:52.850]the day before, over here on October 2nd.
[00:14:55.980]So if I intend to apply a manure
[00:14:58.780]on a field on October 2nd, here,
[00:15:02.280]I ought to be looking at what is the wind direction when
[00:15:07.130]I had these high-risk conditions that the evening
[00:15:10.100]after the evening of October 2nd.
[00:15:13.670]Wind direction here
[00:15:17.550]is out of the Northwest
[00:15:21.860]to Southwest during these period.
[00:15:25.480]So if I have a field that has neighbors
[00:15:27.690]to the Northwest or the Southwest,
[00:15:31.170]they're at risk.
[00:15:32.890]If I have fields that have no neighbors on that side
[00:15:35.770]but has neighbors on that East thought,
[00:15:40.521]I mean, not in other directions, probably a good time to
[00:15:44.110]I can apply manure on that field
[00:15:45.870]even though I might have neighbors close by.
[00:15:49.400]So let's go back to the lawn and tillers site.
[00:15:54.840]And remember on October 2nd, we have high risk
[00:15:59.320]for winds coming out of the Northwest
[00:16:01.760]and the Southwest.
[00:16:03.960]October 3rd, we have winds coming
[00:16:06.130]out of the Southeast, but that's a pretty low risk period.
[00:16:11.690]So on the Von site on October 2nd
[00:16:16.810]I've got some neighbors that might become quite
[00:16:20.000]irritated with me.
[00:16:20.980]If I decided to put manure
[00:16:22.460]on that field on October 2nd, if I waited till October 3rd
[00:16:27.490]I'm looking at wind blowing in this direction.
[00:16:31.910]I prob this neighbor to the North
[00:16:34.984]of me is probably not at much risk
[00:16:37.490]because of the wind speed.
[00:16:39.340]And if I was thought
[00:16:40.610]that neighbor was a very sensitive neighbor
[00:16:43.270]maybe I would just put manure on the
[00:16:45.896]on the East half of the field
[00:16:48.600]and keep as much distance to that neighbor as possible.
[00:16:52.050]But October 3rd
[00:16:53.250]I could probably put newer on the bond field.
[00:16:55.860]October 2nd would not be a good time down here
[00:16:59.840]at the North tiller site, wind
[00:17:03.510]out of the South and Northwest
[00:17:06.790]looks like my neighbors are
[00:17:08.150]got a pretty substantial distance
[00:17:10.670]may not be much risk.
[00:17:11.920]I might be able to apply manure
[00:17:13.300]on the 2nd as well as the 3rd.
[00:17:16.870]And so by using that weather forecast
[00:17:20.860]I was able to identify
[00:17:22.400]for this bond site that I've got two neighbors at risk.
[00:17:26.200]I avoid that site.
[00:17:28.160]I can probably avoid getting a disturbed neighbor call the
[00:17:32.053]on the morning block over third.
[00:17:35.950]So something to keep in mind
[00:17:38.553]a three to five day weather forecast that has
[00:17:42.140]that tells us what the wind speed and wind directions are
[00:17:46.480]can give us a really good idea where
[00:17:49.975]those high risk conditions are.
[00:17:52.650]Well, in terms of dealing with the barriers associated
[00:17:58.390]with manure, and the challenges we talked about
[00:18:00.940]a couple of those, there's a lot more
[00:18:02.650]that I'm sure that you've all run into
[00:18:06.160]and I guess we'll leave those discussions for another time.
[00:18:09.030]But in many cases I'm thinking just a good conversation
[00:18:12.980]among the folks that are involved in making decisions
[00:18:16.650]for a farm can help you think
[00:18:18.510]through a strategy that will help address many of those.
[00:18:23.580]So I think that's where we'll wrap up that.
[00:18:26.060]I encourage you to have that discussion
[00:18:28.190]around barriers or challenges
[00:18:31.070]and what is an appropriate strategy with your folks.
[00:18:34.350]And that's where we'll leave off this.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Finding Solutions to Land Application Barriers

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments