Optimizing Manure Application Rates and Uniformity

Amy Schmidt Author

03/05/2021 Added

34 Plays

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From "Manure & Fertilizer: Complementary Roles" portion of Land Application Training 2021

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[00:00:00.330]My name's Amy Schmidt.
[00:00:01.490]I'm a faculty member on campus in Lincoln.
[00:00:04.610]Work with livestock manure management, along with Rick
[00:00:07.350]and part of the animal manure management team with Leslie.
[00:00:11.350]And we're gonna switch here and talk a little bit
[00:00:14.310]about optimizing manure application rates in uniformity.
[00:00:19.450]So we know from a survey we did recently
[00:00:24.410]and from data that's been published by the universities
[00:00:29.440]and by UNL as well that it's,
[00:00:34.510]we often don't see manure being applied
[00:00:36.650]at the rate that a farmer thinks it's being applied.
[00:00:39.590]And so we wanna talk about some ways that we can improve
[00:00:44.330]the rate of application get closer to the rate,
[00:00:46.840]we think we're having
[00:00:48.190]that we think we're applying
[00:00:49.730]and how we can improve uniformity.
[00:00:51.350]Uniformity is one of those things
[00:00:52.820]that we've identified the crop producers say is
[00:00:56.080]kind of a barrier to using manure is,
[00:00:57.980]we don't really know what we're getting.
[00:00:59.890]It's not a real uniform application.
[00:01:02.040]So we'll talk a little bit
[00:01:03.030]about how we can address that issue.
[00:01:06.700]But one of the things I wanna point out
[00:01:08.890]you have a worksheet available
[00:01:11.240]through the link where you would have gotten Dr. Couches
[00:01:16.090]worksheets that he just ran through.
[00:01:18.850]So if you haven't already done
[00:01:20.410]so maybe you can get that printed out
[00:01:22.310]and we'll run through an example here
[00:01:24.770]partway through the presentation
[00:01:27.830]to do a couple of calibration examples.
[00:01:34.700]So like I said, there's studies showing that
[00:01:38.130]we don't always get what we think we're applying
[00:01:41.260]when we do a manure application.
[00:01:43.750]One of these is a recent study
[00:01:44.880]out of Michigan State University.
[00:01:46.890]And they found that only about a fourth
[00:01:49.670]of the farmers that they worked with were getting
[00:01:53.030]within 20% of their intended manure application rates.
[00:01:56.290]So if they set up the settings
[00:01:59.640]on their solid manure spreader or the speed
[00:02:03.020]they wanted to go on there,
[00:02:04.010]with their liquid manure spreader
[00:02:06.030]and I said I'm gonna apply X many tons per acre,
[00:02:08.990]or X many gallons per acre of manure.
[00:02:12.330]If they went out and measured that they really,
[00:02:15.400]they were only getting maybe
[00:02:17.040]within 20% of that intended rate.
[00:02:19.050]So that's quite a bit of a discrepancy
[00:02:23.230]in that application.
[00:02:26.040]And we care about this for a couple of reasons.
[00:02:29.280]One, over application of manure
[00:02:32.480]can lead to environmental risks.
[00:02:34.350]Of course, if we're putting on more manure
[00:02:37.700]than the crop and the soil can utilize or their needs
[00:02:43.370]then there's that potential for losing some
[00:02:44.900]of those excess nutrients to the environment.
[00:02:47.520]We also know that there's some wasted investment there.
[00:02:50.520]There's value in manure, in the nutrients
[00:02:54.530]and although we don't really have a good way
[00:02:57.780]of assigning value to things
[00:02:59.180]like organic matter and the microbes
[00:03:03.160]and microbial activity that originates from manure.
[00:03:06.570]We know there's some value there as well.
[00:03:09.170]Under application of course, if we're undershooting
[00:03:12.730]what we need to apply for our crops,
[00:03:15.270]then we're probably going to have some nutrient deficiencies
[00:03:18.360]and some yield reduction.
[00:03:19.830]So we don't want that either.
[00:03:23.556](indistinct)
[00:03:24.850]So we think about rate versus uniformity.
[00:03:28.180]They're kind of two different things
[00:03:30.610]and there's a couple different ways
[00:03:32.020]we can look at addressing those.
[00:03:34.760]So for the rate of application
[00:03:36.170]we need to identify the settings on our spreader
[00:03:40.290]and the vehicle that we're using to pull it
[00:03:43.870]to achieve our intended rate of application.
[00:03:46.490]With uniformity there's some practices we can implement
[00:03:51.340]it depends a bit on the type of manure
[00:03:53.040]but also on how that manure is handled.
[00:03:55.670]So some of the things that can affect application rate
[00:03:59.970]of course, travel speed.
[00:04:01.860]If you set up your equipment, your solid manure spreader
[00:04:08.010]with a certain gate opening and chain speed
[00:04:11.660]and then you drive twice as fast as you intended
[00:04:14.670]you're going to get half the rate
[00:04:15.970]of application that you intended.
[00:04:18.890]The condition of equipment, even right out of the factory
[00:04:23.180]just like pretty much any kind of equipment
[00:04:25.500]whether it's a ceiling fan in your house
[00:04:28.000]or ventilation fans in your, in a swine unit
[00:04:32.160]they're never 100% efficient.
[00:04:34.260]And although, newer equipment is probably going to be
[00:04:40.430]more efficient at application than some older
[00:04:42.760]and more new equipment.
[00:04:44.570]It's still not necessarily 100% efficient.
[00:04:49.330]So maintaining equipment, testing, calibrating
[00:04:53.380]that equipment to make sure that you're actually getting
[00:04:55.550]the rate that you think you're getting is an important step
[00:04:59.050]in and making sure that you are applying manure
[00:05:02.080]as efficiently as possible.
[00:05:04.540]Other things like operating pressure on the liquid spreader,
[00:05:08.350]gate opening with the chain speed, the spread with all
[00:05:13.070]of these can affect your application rate.
[00:05:15.700]Things that affect the uniformity
[00:05:19.220]again, equipment condition can affect that.
[00:05:21.410]So you think about a liquid injector toolbar.
[00:05:27.250]If that equipment hasn't been well-maintained
[00:05:30.770]or well serviced, there might be less flow going
[00:05:37.200]to one injector than the other.
[00:05:39.300]Or less flow going to half of the injectors
[00:05:42.690]than the other half.
[00:05:45.170]If you're on a slope, particularly
[00:05:47.310]with a liquid spreader, again, the downhill side
[00:05:51.330]of that spreader is probably getting more pressure
[00:05:53.750]from the liquid.
[00:05:55.080]And it's probably going to be applying at a higher rate
[00:05:56.940]out of that one side than the other.
[00:06:00.380]Spread width and the way that your passes overlap
[00:06:04.160]between passes with your spreader could affect
[00:06:07.160]that uniformity as well.
[00:06:09.010]So we get a more concentrated application in the middle
[00:06:12.960]of the path that we're traveling.
[00:06:14.940]And as you go out farther to the sides
[00:06:17.930]you'll tend to have a lower rate of application out there.
[00:06:21.270]So if we can overlap our passes in the field
[00:06:27.140]to try to even that out that will improve
[00:06:29.240]the overall uniformity of the application.
[00:06:31.820]And then manure consistency.
[00:06:34.400]So thinking about liquid manure again,
[00:06:37.370]if you're pumping a deep pit of a swine building
[00:06:41.660]and you haven't spent time agitating and mixing that pit
[00:06:45.650]prior to pumping, you're likely going to get
[00:06:47.980]some pretty thin liquid lower solids content coming out
[00:06:53.910]at first.
[00:06:54.870]And as that pit empties and you get
[00:06:56.230]down into some of the heavier sludge material
[00:06:59.480]then you get a higher solids content in that manure.
[00:07:03.440]And we know that, nutrients will be different
[00:07:05.990]in those two types.
[00:07:08.310]And it'll change over that period
[00:07:09.430]of time that you're pumping.
[00:07:10.750]Same with beef manure that's if you haul it when it's frozen
[00:07:16.500]and you have some larger chunks in it, or when
[00:07:20.020]it's really wet and it's really clumped together
[00:07:24.300]more than you want it to be.
[00:07:25.760]So that kind of, those I guess choosing the right time
[00:07:31.220]and the right process to prepare that manure
[00:07:33.380]for application, those are things that
[00:07:35.200]can affect the uniformity.
[00:07:38.720]So I wanna go through a couple methods
[00:07:41.380]and examples about how to calibrate.
[00:07:44.540]The examples that I'm going to go through are
[00:07:48.390]kind of catered towards cattle manure,
[00:07:51.150]but they work also for liquid manure.
[00:07:53.740]But so the first way we might think
[00:07:56.530]about doing this calibration is to either use the volume
[00:08:00.550]or weight of manure that's being applied
[00:08:03.510]and look at the area over which
[00:08:05.800]that amount of the manure is applied.
[00:08:08.140]And then we can figure out the application rate.
[00:08:10.430]So for instance, we might have liquid manure.
[00:08:14.690]That's we have a 6,000 gallon tank wagon
[00:08:19.430]and we go, it has a swath width let's say of 20 feet
[00:08:25.070]and we traveled 500 feet with it.
[00:08:28.120]We can figure out that volume
[00:08:30.110]and what area we covered and a get rate in gallons per acre.
[00:08:34.210]Same thing with a solid manure
[00:08:36.900]where we have a weight and we know the area that's covered
[00:08:39.830]we can get a tons per acre application rate.
[00:08:43.770]So one of the things, obviously this requires is
[00:08:46.910]that you can weigh that manure spreader
[00:08:49.810]with a full load and then weigh it when it's empty
[00:08:52.930]and figure out the actual weight
[00:08:54.800]of the manure that was applied with that load.
[00:08:57.600]And we're gonna look at the weight applied and divide that
[00:08:59.660]by the area that we covered during that application.
[00:09:03.920]We have 5,000 pounds of manure
[00:09:05.860]so that's gonna be the top part
[00:09:07.340]of your application rate equation here.
[00:09:10.250]And I put three different swath widths here.
[00:09:13.310]So you can choose whichever one you want.
[00:09:15.630]You're gonna travel 1000 feet with that spreader,
[00:09:18.100]and it's either gonna spread that manure
[00:09:20.320]eight feet in a path, eight feet wide, 10 feet wide
[00:09:22.930]or 12 feet wide.
[00:09:25.060]Choose whichever of those you'd like to calculate first
[00:09:27.830]and that's gonna go in the bottom of your equation.
[00:09:29.810]So 1000 feet is the distance covered and then eight,
[00:09:33.070]10 or 12 feet is the width of that application.
[00:09:38.490]I'm gonna go ahead and put up the answer
[00:09:39.960]for the 12 foot swath width
[00:09:43.120]just for you to check your math against.
[00:09:45.840]So if we had 5,000 pounds
[00:09:48.600]and we traveled 1000 feet in distance
[00:09:51.100]and our swath width was 12 feet wide
[00:09:54.670]we take 5,000 divided by 12,000.
[00:09:57.840]And we get a rate of application of 0.42 pounds
[00:10:02.070]per square foot.
[00:10:03.520]Now none of us talk in pounds per square foot,
[00:10:05.560]when we apply manure, right?
[00:10:07.000]We talk in tons per acre.
[00:10:09.290]So this factor right here, this conversion factor takes you
[00:10:15.780]from pounds per square feet to tons per acre.
[00:10:18.520]So if you just take this 0.42 times the 21.8
[00:10:22.410]we find that we have an application rate
[00:10:24.210]of a little over nine tons per acre.
[00:10:27.020]The rate for the 10 foot swath width
[00:10:29.640]and he came up with 10.9 tons per acre.
[00:10:34.040]And I accidentally put up the one for the eight foot.
[00:10:36.030]So you don't have to calculate that
[00:10:37.630]I guess if you hadn't already done it.
[00:10:39.550]But 13.7 tons per acre for an eight foot width.
[00:10:43.200]So it makes sense, right?
[00:10:44.810]That the narrower the width that we're applying that over
[00:10:49.120]the higher the rate of application from that past.
[00:10:55.510]So if you spread it over a larger area
[00:10:56.850]of the actual rate of application per unit areas is less.
[00:11:02.090]So that's a fairly straightforward calculation,
[00:11:05.580]if you have access to scales to weigh
[00:11:09.730]that load of manure.
[00:11:11.930]Or if you have the type of spreader
[00:11:14.810]that actually weighs the load
[00:11:17.467]that's loaded into it.
[00:11:19.600]But if you don't have access
[00:11:20.830]to scales to weigh that will spread or full of manure,
[00:11:27.820]then you need another method.
[00:11:29.760]And so the other method that
[00:11:32.230]and this is what we use a lot in our research
[00:11:35.900]we call it the tarp method.
[00:11:37.790]And this is for solid manure spreader calibration.
[00:11:40.640]If you were doing the liquid calibration
[00:11:42.380]we would want to be using some sort of rain gauges
[00:11:45.450]or buckets that were collecting that liquid manure in
[00:11:49.290]as it's applied.
[00:11:51.030]But for the tarp method, it's pretty straight forward.
[00:11:55.160]You don't need a light, you need a five gallon bucket,
[00:12:00.210]a fish scale that you can use to hang that bucket
[00:12:03.230]onto weigh it, and then you'll need a set of tarps.
[00:12:06.550]And when you're selecting the size of your tarps
[00:12:12.420]if you use a tarp that's 22 square feet in area,
[00:12:17.810]you'll be better off doing the calculation at the end.
[00:12:20.330]Because you won't have to convert
[00:12:21.560]from pounds per square foot to tons per acre.
[00:12:23.870]Because remember that conversion factor, we talked
[00:12:27.050]about just a couple of slides ago of 21.8.
[00:12:29.950]If your tarp is 22 square feet in area, then you've got
[00:12:33.650]that calculation factor in there already.
[00:12:36.990]So we'll look at that as we go here.
[00:12:39.320]But a bucket of fish scale and these plastic tarps
[00:12:42.930]are all you need.
[00:12:44.120]And so you're gonna go out and lay out these plastic tarps
[00:12:49.370]along the travel path of the spreader.
[00:12:53.030]We always use three when we do a calibration
[00:12:56.830]that way we've got three sets of results,
[00:12:59.370]and we can take an average.
[00:13:00.890]If you don't have three charts, you can,
[00:13:03.180]you could run the same spreader or over a tarp three
[00:13:06.640]different times and get three different measurements.
[00:13:10.350]But we usually lay them three of them out in a line.
[00:13:13.600]And then you're gonna drive the spreader,
[00:13:17.000]you're gonna start the application and drive the spreader
[00:13:19.450]across all three of those at your normal rate,
[00:13:22.380]normal settings that you would use to apply the amount
[00:13:26.520]of manure that you're intending to apply.
[00:13:28.460]So there's a video here pretty, pretty straightforward.
[00:13:32.150]You've probably all seen this or done this
[00:13:34.060]but we've got our tarps laid out
[00:13:38.330]on the ground here, and we're gonna drive our spreader
[00:13:42.210]across there.
[00:13:43.234](tractor engine revving)
[00:13:45.131]And you can see it past one tarp, two tarps
[00:13:48.000]and then three tarps there.
[00:13:53.980]So after we've done that application across those
[00:13:56.780]then we go out and we pick up each one of those tarps
[00:13:59.460]individually being well careful to spill any
[00:14:03.070]of the manure off the sides of it.
[00:14:05.520]Just so in this particular picture
[00:14:07.140]that probably doesn't look
[00:14:09.180]like the manure to you.
[00:14:10.013]Because it's not this was actually an application
[00:14:12.950]of coal ash from a sugar beet processor
[00:14:17.840]that we were spreading and we were calibrating
[00:14:20.770]the spreader with that.
[00:14:21.620]But same principle applies with manure.
[00:14:24.850]You collect the tarp and push that tarp
[00:14:28.470]and all of the manure that's in it down into a bucket.
[00:14:31.240]And then you're gonna use your scale
[00:14:33.220]to weigh that weigh the bucket
[00:14:35.010]and the tarp and the manure together.
[00:14:39.800]I know you can't see it on here,
[00:14:41.143]but this scale is reading 14.8 pounds.
[00:14:45.470]So in this, we've got the bucket, the tarp
[00:14:48.050]and the maneuver altogether that weigh 14.8 pounds.
[00:14:52.840]When we remove the manure, get rid of the manure from it.
[00:14:56.260]And we just weigh the bucket and the tarp
[00:14:59.360]we found that those two together weigh, 1.8 pounds.
[00:15:02.780]So taking this 14.8 minus the weight
[00:15:05.920]of just the bucket and the tarp gave us 13 pounds
[00:15:10.140]of manure that was applied to that area.
[00:15:12.650]And so that 13 pounds of manure applied
[00:15:14.880]to that 22 square foot tarp is equal to 13 tons per acre.
[00:15:20.910]So again, that factor, that conversion factor
[00:15:24.630]is already in there.
[00:15:25.463]So whatever the weight is on that tarp
[00:15:27.880]if that tarp is 22 square feet
[00:15:29.670]that equals the tons per acre application rate.
[00:15:33.360]So on your worksheet,
[00:15:36.640]and I don't have it in front of me now
[00:15:39.489]I believe I put at the bottom of their conversion.
[00:15:43.210]If you're not using a tarp that's 22 square feet in size.
[00:15:47.610]So it's, it makes it a little bit more difficult,
[00:15:49.410]but it's not impossible to do it that way.
[00:15:53.460]Just makes it a lot easier
[00:15:54.680]if you have a tarp it's 22 square feet.
[00:15:58.400]So there's a problem at the bottom of that worksheet.
[00:16:05.430]We're gonna run through how to do,
[00:16:07.620]how to calculate the average rate of application
[00:16:10.240]for a scenario where we have three tarps laid out.
[00:16:14.602]We know that the weight of the tarp, tarps individual tarps
[00:16:20.300]and the bucket is 1.6 pounds.
[00:16:22.840]We used the tarps that were 22 square feet in area.
[00:16:26.730]And when we weighed the tarp
[00:16:29.580]plus the manure plus the bucket
[00:16:34.020]for this first application, we got 22.6 pounds.
[00:16:38.630]When we did that for the second one
[00:16:40.290]the tarp, manure and bucket together, weighed 18.2 pounds.
[00:16:43.900]And then the third one was 18.9 pounds.
[00:16:46.930]So the first thing I'd like you to do is calculate
[00:16:49.430]the weight of manure that was collected
[00:16:51.470]on each of these tarps.
[00:16:53.780]So again, this is your weight of manure, tarp and bucket
[00:16:58.040]and up here is the weight of the tarp and bucket.
[00:17:02.510]So I'll give you could just a few seconds here
[00:17:04.570]to run through those calculations.
[00:17:08.060]So for the first one, 22.6, minus the 1.6
[00:17:12.160]we get 21 pounds of manure that was on that tarp.
[00:17:15.290]So we know that's an application rate of 21 tons per acre.
[00:17:19.320]On the second one, we got 16.6 pounds
[00:17:21.830]and on the third one, we got 17.3.
[00:17:24.850]So if we want to know our average application rate
[00:17:29.480]what do we need to do?
[00:17:32.460]We're gonna take these three rates
[00:17:34.880]add them together and divide by three.
[00:17:36.770]And that should give us our average.
[00:17:39.650]So the average application rate, when we add the three
[00:17:41.750]of these together and divide by three, 18.3 tons per acre.
[00:17:46.640]So it's interesting when you look at this
[00:17:50.690]and this is a situation we actually ran
[00:17:53.490]into with some of our calibrations
[00:17:54.900]in the field.
[00:17:56.480]You got four pounds more of manure on the first tarp
[00:18:01.210]than the second one.
[00:18:02.510]These two are pretty close together
[00:18:03.790]but what happened with this first one
[00:18:05.830]that we weren't getting we kind of have an outlier,
[00:18:09.460]or a different weight than we would expect.
[00:18:13.470]We did a project recently where we were applying manure
[00:18:16.870]to plots, and we wanted to look at,
[00:18:23.550]we wanna look at the variability
[00:18:24.820]in our manure application rate
[00:18:26.340]across loads of manure and the plots that we covered.
[00:18:30.870]And so for each load of manure
[00:18:33.420]it took us five loads of beef manure to cover all
[00:18:35.620]of the plots that we were working with.
[00:18:37.990]So for each load, we laid
[00:18:40.570]out three tarps and we did a calibration
[00:18:42.520]and found our average application rate.
[00:18:45.490]And for each of those loads
[00:18:47.570]we also did grab samples of manure from our tarps
[00:18:51.870]and compiled those by load and had those analyze.
[00:18:55.540]So we could look at what's the variability in our nutrients
[00:18:58.090]by load of manure?
[00:18:59.880]And then what was the variability
[00:19:01.330]in our application rate with each load?
[00:19:04.300]So this was the actual data that we got.
[00:19:06.180]We had five loads, these were the actual application rates
[00:19:09.660]we measured gave us this average of 20, which we were going
[00:19:13.210]for 20 tons per acre.
[00:19:15.690]But you can see, we overshot
[00:19:17.480]that on a few and undershot it by quite a bit on these two.
[00:19:23.490]One of the reasons it was pretty uneven.
[00:19:26.082]This was in January, the manure was frozen.
[00:19:31.200]It was from a bedded beef barn
[00:19:33.220]and there were some pretty good size chunks
[00:19:35.700]of manure coming out of that spreader.
[00:19:37.330]So it wasn't a very consistent product
[00:19:38.990]which is one of the things that I mentioned that we
[00:19:43.170]if we can improve the consistency of that maneuver product
[00:19:46.370]then we can have a more consistent rate of application.
[00:19:49.510]But we didn't have that day when we were working out there.
[00:19:56.460]But if we look and we compare our largest application rate,
[00:20:02.390]which was load number three
[00:20:04.020]we applied it almost 30 tons per acre.
[00:20:06.770]And we compare that to load number one
[00:20:08.880]where were applying about 14 tons per acre
[00:20:12.970]quite a bit of difference in that application rate.
[00:20:15.450]If we look down here at the nutrient content in those loads,
[00:20:18.920]load one we were 17.1 pounds per ton of organic nitrogen 0.5
[00:20:26.010]on ammonium and load three, 19 and 0.7.
[00:20:30.857]So our difference in nutrient value
[00:20:33.030]of those loads of manure was not very different.
[00:20:37.040]They were pretty consistent looking at the phosphate
[00:20:39.640]load one had 11.7 pounds per ton, load three had 11.4.
[00:20:45.080]But this difference in the actual application rate
[00:20:47.660]we got made a big difference in the amount
[00:20:51.540]of nutrients that we actually applied to those plots.
[00:20:55.730]So this gets us to the water adjustments we can make
[00:20:57.880]to improve application uniformity.
[00:21:00.360]I can tell you what we did on that site.
[00:21:02.320]And we figured it out pretty quickly.
[00:21:04.540]I think the farmer that was running the equipment
[00:21:07.120]for us was hoping we wouldn't notice this, but when
[00:21:11.200]we got that data and we were looking at it with him
[00:21:13.120]we were like, "What happened on this first load
[00:21:15.550]and the last load?"
[00:21:16.420]And he said, "Well, I realized towards the end of
[00:21:21.340]that application path that I had, I hadn't shifted the,
[00:21:31.680]or that I had shifted the tractor
[00:21:33.730]into a higher gear than on the other plot.
[00:21:36.400]So I was going twice as fast."
[00:21:38.810]So you still have the same amount of manure
[00:21:41.750]but he applied it to a longer area
[00:21:44.120]of land because he was traveling much quicker.
[00:21:46.280]And it was so it was getting us a lower rate of application.
[00:21:50.320]So it was a very simple mistake that he made
[00:21:53.870]and he knew it, but it was just a matter of
[00:21:57.240]he had all the settings right on the spreader
[00:21:58.970]but one time he shifted
[00:22:01.040]into second gear and the other time he didn't.
[00:22:03.790]And so it doubled the application rate when
[00:22:05.640]he was going slower versus when he was going faster.
[00:22:08.960]So just kind of some simple things like that
[00:22:12.670]that we can pay attention to
[00:22:14.020]during applications to tarp make that application
[00:22:17.070]more uniform.
[00:22:18.730]I suggested last week and I think a couple
[00:22:21.840]of suggestions that were shared afterwards was this idea of
[00:22:25.730]keeping a notebook or a post-it note
[00:22:27.490]or somewhere written in the cab of the spreader
[00:22:31.510]or the tractor that's pulling the spreader.
[00:22:34.440]What are the settings that we use last time when
[00:22:37.570]we made an application that got us, the rate that we wanted?
[00:22:40.540]So once you've kind of figured out the chain speed
[00:22:43.780]and the gate opening and the travel speed of the tractor
[00:22:47.530]you should be able to go back to those each time
[00:22:49.480]and get pretty close to that same application rate.
[00:22:51.790]So if there's multiple people
[00:22:53.020]on a farm who run that application equipment.
[00:22:56.420]If that calibration is done
[00:22:58.960]and you have those settings and you post them in there
[00:23:01.750]then the next time someone else is operating that machine
[00:23:04.050]they should be able to get pretty close
[00:23:06.270]to the application rate that they're wanting to get.
[00:23:09.790]Because you've already calibrated
[00:23:11.150]and made that data available to them.
[00:23:15.430]So anybody else wanna think
[00:23:17.060]of some other adjustments we could make
[00:23:18.540]to improve the application uniformity?
[00:23:22.860]Well if we think about, if we go back and look at
[00:23:28.870]we look at this picture here
[00:23:30.440]we really don't see a heavier rate in the center.
[00:23:33.240]Because obviously this is a drawing that I made, not a
[00:23:36.010]not an actual image.
[00:23:37.770]But most of the time you're gonna see a heavier rate
[00:23:41.190]of application down the center
[00:23:42.630]of that travel path then out here on the edges, right?
[00:23:45.400]So you kind of get a, it kind of tapers off at the edges.
[00:23:48.920]So one way we can improve the uniformity is that when
[00:23:51.413]we make this first pass and when we turned
[00:23:55.710]around to come back the other direction.
[00:23:57.170]Instead of traveling over here where our swamp
[00:24:01.990]or manure spread out to this point, travel closer.
[00:24:04.770]So we get more of an overlap and kind of increase the rate
[00:24:11.870]of application out here at the edges.
[00:24:13.420]So that it's closer to what we're applying in the middle.
[00:24:16.050]And again, that's just like with the calibration
[00:24:18.530]of the settings, it's sort of trial and error
[00:24:20.540]and figuring out what works best
[00:24:22.930]with the particular equipment that you're using
[00:24:25.930]to make sure that you're getting that the type
[00:24:29.570]of uniformity that you want.
[00:24:32.590]So the last few slides,
[00:24:35.360]I just wanted to briefly mention some
[00:24:38.040]of the precision manure application technology
[00:24:41.360]that's available.
[00:24:43.970]Why do we want to, why do we wanna use
[00:24:47.110]this type of equipment for manure application?
[00:24:51.380]It helps us apply manure more uniformly
[00:24:53.740]and when we get a more uniform application
[00:24:56.170]we're getting a better consistency
[00:24:58.690]of nutrient application across our field.
[00:25:02.190]One of the other things that's beneficial
[00:25:03.680]for is being able to actually document application rates
[00:25:07.440]for policy compliance.
[00:25:08.600]So as it is now, you probably write down your
[00:25:12.010]the amount you applied and the rate used and where it went
[00:25:15.860]with this type of technology, that's GPS enabled.
[00:25:19.110]You can actually show a regulator or an inspector.
[00:25:23.620]This is where I apply maneuver, and this is the rate.
[00:25:25.860]And you can see how it might've changed across the field.
[00:25:28.770]You can show that you comply with setbacks
[00:25:31.620]you didn't travel too close to a well or a water body
[00:25:35.370]or anything of that nature.
[00:25:37.330]And then if you've got fields
[00:25:39.110]that are some different soil types,
[00:25:41.930]different nutrient content in the soil
[00:25:45.190]you can target some of those specific fertility
[00:25:48.620]and soil quality issues within the field
[00:25:51.420]by adjusting your application rate depending on location.
[00:25:56.810]So some of the different types of technology
[00:25:59.600]that are available, sensors for either the flow
[00:26:03.760]of a liquid manure or the density of solid manure,
[00:26:08.120]and then these control then the belt chain belt,
[00:26:13.730]or chain speed, or the opening.
[00:26:15.230]And if you find that that manure consistency
[00:26:19.440]is changing over time it might speed that belt up
[00:26:21.680]a little bit or slow it down.
[00:26:23.410]Same with manure might slow down or speed up the flow rate
[00:26:26.530]depending on what the actual nutrient concentration
[00:26:30.700]or the density of that liquid manure is.
[00:26:35.634]Most tractors, these days are equipped with GPS
[00:26:40.010]if they're not, you probably have GPS on your phone.
[00:26:43.350]So there, I know there's applications that work
[00:26:45.160]with your phone, where you can actually be watching
[00:26:48.980]as you're going through the field and looking
[00:26:51.170]at your soil soil data, you can make adjustments based
[00:26:56.410]on application rate or nutrient needs
[00:27:01.090]as you move through the field.
[00:27:04.060]With the GPS enabled system
[00:27:05.430]you can shut off the application when you're
[00:27:07.430]in an area that's should be protected by a setback.
[00:27:12.200]And so there's a number of adjustments
[00:27:17.120]and kind of decision-making that this technology takes out
[00:27:22.350]of the process.
[00:27:23.183]So if that data's already in that system
[00:27:25.640]and you're traveling and it's matching up with the GPS
[00:27:28.810]that system already knows like,
[00:27:30.247]"Hey we're entering an area where we can't apply manure
[00:27:33.100]because we're too close to a water body."
[00:27:35.110]So some of these precision technologies can just
[00:27:37.790]make that process a little more automatic
[00:27:42.060]and take some of that guesswork
[00:27:45.380]or decision-making out of the process for the operator.

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Optimizing Manure Application Rates and Uniformity

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