We know that runoff from manured fields can contain nutrients, but how much? Find out with Edge of Field Monitoring. This presentation was originally broadcast on January 22, 2021. Continue reading “Edge of Field Monitoring”
Litter Nutrients and Management in Poultry Systems
As poultry genetics, management practices and industries evolve, so do manure and litter characteristics. This presentation was originally broadcast on June 19, 2020. More… Continue reading “Litter Nutrients and Management in Poultry Systems”
Precision Technologies for Managing Manure
This webinar explores in-field measurements of nutrient concentrations and discusses how precision technologies impact agronomic and water quality management decisions as well as pave the way for automating record-keeping and removing human error from applications. This presentation was originally broadcast on April 17, 2020. More… Continue reading “Precision Technologies for Managing Manure”
Designer Manure: Customizing Manure Nutrients to Meet Crop Needs
What if we could create ‘designer’ manures to meet crop needs? This webinar ways to blend commercial fertilizers with manure to balance nutrients. This presentation was originally broadcast on February 21, 2020. More… Continue reading “Designer Manure: Customizing Manure Nutrients to Meet Crop Needs”
Managing manure beyond the farmyard: Manure management for less-typical species and settings
This webinar goes beyond the farm gate and explores how manure and effluent nutrients are handled for some less-than-typical farm-raised animal species. This presentation was originally broadcast on January 17, 2020. More… Continue reading “Managing manure beyond the farmyard: Manure management for less-typical species and settings”
Phosphorus Management Lessons Learned from the Field
During this webinar three extension and research leaders for phosphorus management issues shared their experience on critical lessons learned about phosphorus management. This presentation was originally broadcast on December 13, 2019. More… Continue reading “Phosphorus Management Lessons Learned from the Field”
Managing Manure to Mitigate Antibiotic Resistance
This webinar highlights some of the work being done to identify effective practices for reducing concentrations of resistant bacteria and resistance genes at critical control points in beef feedlot and dairy manure management systems. This presentation was originally broadcast on November 15, 2019. More… Continue reading “Managing Manure to Mitigate Antibiotic Resistance”
Reduction and fate of manure pathogens and antimicrobial resistance
Antimicrobial resistance is a complex issue as it is comprised of not only pathogenic bacteria, but also non-pathogens which share genes within complex environmental systems, such as agricultural fields. This webinar describes potential measures to reduce pathogen and antimicrobial resistance in manure as well as potential fate and transport of manure pathogens and antimicrobial resistance following land application of manure. This presentation was originally broadcast on May 17, 2019. More… Continue reading “Reduction and fate of manure pathogens and antimicrobial resistance”
Predicting Manure Nitrogen and Phosphorus Characteristics of Beef Open Lot Systems
This project involves the analysis of a new data set for manure characteristics from open lot beef systems demonstrating both average characteristics and factors contribution to variability in manure characteristics among these systems. Defining the characteristics and quantities of harvested manure and runoff from open earthen lot animal systems is critical to planning storage requirements, land requirements for nutrient utilization, land application rates, and logistical issues, such as equipment and labor requirements. Accuracy of these estimates are critical to planning processes required by federal and state permitting programs. Poor estimates can lead to discharges that result in court action and fines, neighbor nuisance complaints, and surface and ground water degradation. Planning procedures have historically relied upon standard values published by NRCS (Stettler et al., 2008), MWPS (Lorimor et al., 2000), and ASABE (2014) for average characteristics.
What Did We Do?
A large data set of analyses from manure samples collected over a 15-year period from 444 independent cattle feedlot pens at a single eastern Nebraska research facility was reviewed to provide insight to the degree of variability in observed manure characteristics and to investigate the factors influencing this variability. No previous efforts to define these characteristics have included data gathered over such a wide range of dietary strategies and weather conditions. This exclusive research data set is expected to provide new insights regarding influential factors affecting characteristics of manure and runoff harvested from open lot beef systems. The objective of this paper is to share a preliminary summary of findings based upon a review of this data set.
What Have We Learned?
A review of this unique data set reveals several important preliminary observations. Standard values reported by ASABE and MWPS for beef manure characteristics in open lot systems are relatively poor indicators of the significant variability that is observed within open lot feeding systems. Our data set reveals significant differences between manure characteristics as a function of feeding period (Table 1) and substantial variability within feeding period, as illustrated by the large coefficients of variation for individual characteristics. Differences in winter and summer conditions influence the characteristics and quantities of solids, organic matter, and nutrients in the harvested manure. The timing of the feeding period has substantial influence on observed differences in nitrogen loss and nitrogen in manure (Figure 1). Nitrogen recovery for the warmer summer feeding periods averaged 51 and 6 grams/head/day in the manure and runoff, respectively, with losses estimated to be 155 grams/head/day. Similarly, nitrogen recovery in manure and runoff for the winter feeding period was 90 and 4 grams/head/day, respectively, with losses estimated at 92 grams/head/day (Figure 1 and Koelsch, et al., 2018). In addition, differences in weather and pen conditions during and following winter and summer feeding periods impact manure moisture content and the mixing of inorganics with manure (Table 1).
Table 1. Characteristics of manure collected from 216 and 228 cattle feedlot pens during Summer and Winter feeding periods, respectively1. | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
University of Nebraska Feedlot in East Central Nebraska | Standard Values | |||||||||
Summer | Winter | ASABE | NRCS | MWPS3 | ||||||
Mean | CV2 | Mean | CV2 | Mean | Mean | |||||
Total Manure (wet basis), kg/hd/d | 9.3 | 99% | 13.1 | 43% | 7.5 | 7.9 | ||||
DM % | 71% | 10% | 63.2% | 15% | 67% | Collected | 55% | |||
kg/hd/d | 5.4 | 80% | 8.0 | 41% | 5.0 | manure | 4.3 | |||
OM % | 24% | 28% | 25.3% | 41% | 30% | is not | 50% | |||
kg/hd/d | 1.00 | 52% | 1.87 | 41% | 1.5 | reported. | 2.2 | |||
Ash % | 76% | 9% | 74.7% | 14% | 70% | 50% | ||||
kg/hd/d | 4.16 | 72% | 6.10 | 49% | 3.5 | 2.2 | ||||
N % | 1.3% | 36% | 1.19% | 23% | 1.18% | 1.2% | ||||
g/hd/d | 51 | 50% | 90 | 33% | 88 | 95 | ||||
P % | 0.37% | 41% | 0.34% | 29% | 0.50% | 0.35% | ||||
k/hd/d | 17.7 | 55% | 26.0 | 42% | 37.5 | 27.7 | ||||
DM = dry matter; OM = organic matter (or volatile solids)
1 Summer = April to October feeding period, Winter = November to May feeding period 2 Coefficient of variation, % 3 Unsurfaced lot in dry climate with annual manure removal. |

Dietary concentration of nutrients was observed to influence the harvested manure P content (Figure 2) but produce minimal impact on harvested manure N content (not shown). Diet was an important predictor in observed N losses, especially during the summer feeding period. However, its limited value for predicting harvested manure N and moderate value for predicting harvesting manure P suggests that other factors such as weather and management may be influential in determining N and P recovered (Koelsch, et al., 2018).

Significant variability exists in the quantity of total solids of manure harvested with a factor of 10 difference between the observed low and high values when compared on a mass per finished head basis (note large CVs in Table 1). This variability has significant influence on quality of the manure collected as represented by organic matter, ash content, and moisture content.
Although individual experimental trials comparing practices to increase organic matter on the feedlot surface have demonstrated some benefit to reducing nitrogen losses, the overall data set does not demonstrate value from higher pen surface organic matter for conservation of N in the manure (Koelsch, et al., 2018). However, higher organic matter manure is correlated to improved nitrogen concentration in the manure suggesting a higher value for the manure (Figure 3).

It is typically recommended that manure management planning should be based upon unique analysis for manure characteristics representative of the manure being applied. The large variability in harvested manure from open lot beef systems observed in this study further confirms the importance of this recommendation. The influence of weather on the manure and the management challenges of collecting manure from these systems adds to the complexity of predicting manure characteristics. In addition, standard reporting methods such as ASABE should consider reporting of separate standard values based upon time of the year feeding and/or manure collection period. This review of beef manure characteristics over a 15 year period further documents the challenge of planning based upon typical or standard value for open lot beef manure.
Future Plans
The compilation and analysis of the manure and runoff data from these 444 independent measure of feedlot manure characteristics is a part of an undergraduate student research experience. Final review and analysis of this data will be completed by summer 2019 with the data published at a later time. The authors will explore the value of this data for adjusting beef manure characteristics for ASABE’s Standard (ASABE, 2014).
References
ASABE. 2014. ASAE D384.2 MAR2005 (R2014): Manure Production and Characteristics. ASABE, St. Joseph, Ml. 32 pages.
Lorimor, J., W. Powers, and A. Sutton. 2000. Manure characteristics. Manure Management Systems Series MWPS-18. Midwest Plan Service. Ames Iowa: Iowa State University.
Stettler, D., C. Zuller, D. Hickman. 2008. Agricultural Waste Characteristics. Chapter 4 of Part 651, NRCS Agricultural Waste Management Field Handbook. pages 4-1 to 4-32.
Authors
Richard (Rick) Koelsch, Professor of Biological Systems Engineering and Animal Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
rkoelsch1@unl.edu
Megan Homolka, student, and Galen Erickson Professor of Animal Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Additional Information
The authors are solely responsible for the content of these proceedings. The technical information does not necessarily reflect the official position of the sponsoring agencies or institutions represented by planning committee members, and inclusion and distribution herein does not constitute an endorsement of views expressed by the same. Printed materials included herein are not refereed publications. Citations should appear as follows. EXAMPLE: Authors. 2019. Title of presentation. Waste to Worth. Minneapolis, MN. April 22-26, 2019. URL of this page. Accessed on: today’s date.
Characterization of Nutrients and GHG Emissions from Separated Dairy Manure
This study has the objectives of characterizing dairy manure pre and post solid-liquid separation (SLS), estimating and comparing processing efficiencies between different technologies, and relating emissions to manure characteristics by using modeling tools.
What did we do?
Manure samples from nine dairy farms in southern and eastern Wisconsin were collected every two weeks. All nine farms separated manure into liquid and solid streams and seven farms used anaerobic digesters (ADs) prior to solids separation (Table 1). For all farms, manure was sampled pre-processing (untreated manure) and after any individual processing step in order to isolate the performance of each treatment unit at each farm (Figure 1). All manure samples were analyzed for total solids (TS), volatile solids (VS), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia (NH3), total phosphorus (TP), total potassium (TK) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Separation efficiency was estimated by solving a system of two equations of separation mass balance (Equations 1 and 2) based on the concentrations of each constituent.
Where:
-
-
-
- X (kg) is the constituent under evaluation (e.g. TS, NH3, etc.)
- [ ] indicates percent concentration in the solid (solid, out), liquid (liquid, out) fractions after separation, and total before separation (total, in)
- Manure (kg) is the manure mass in the solid (solid, out), liquid (liquid, out) fractions after separation, and total before separation (total, in)
-
-
What have we learned?
Both screw press and centrifuge technologies achieve higher separation efficiencies for TS and VS than for TN, NH3, TP, and TK, meaning that more TS and VS stay with the solids fraction. Moreover, NH3 stays almost entirely in the liquid fraction. Results indicate that centrifugation might achieve higher TP separation efficiencies than screw pressing. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, were affected by the management practices used to handle the liquid and solid fractions. Methane emissions from liquid storage are reduced as a percentage of the VS stays with the solids fraction. However, nitrous oxide emissions from the separated solids might increase if separated solids are stored and not quickly land applied or transported outside of the farm for posterior use.
Future Plans
Analysis for anaerobic digestion efficiency and pathogen inactivation will be incorporated in this study to conduct a complete assessment of manure characteristics after AD and SLS and their impact on different environmental indicators.
Table 1. Summary of each farm’s manure management process. | |||
---|---|---|---|
Farm ID |
AD |
SLS |
Feedstock |
1 |
Mixed plug flow |
Screw press |
Dairy manure |
2 |
No |
ABRU |
Dairy manure |
3 | Complete Mix |
Screw press with blower |
Dairy manure |
4 |
Mixed plug flow |
Screw press |
Dairy manure |
5 |
Mixed plug flow |
Screw press |
Paunch manure, food waste |
6 |
Mixed plug flow |
Screw press |
Dairy manure |
7 |
Mixed plug flow |
Screw press |
Dairy manure |
8 |
Complete Mix |
Centrifuge |
Dairy manure, ethanol byproduct, FOG |
9 |
No |
ABRU |
Dairy manure |
AD: anaerobic digestion, SLS: solid-liquid separation, ABRU: aerobic bedding recovery unit , FOG: fat, oil, and grease |

Authors
Aguirre-Villegas Horacio Andres. Assistant Scientist. Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison. aguirreville@wisc.edu
Sharara Mahmoud. Assistant Professor. Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. NC State University
Larson Rebecca. Associate Professor. Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The authors are solely responsible for the content of these proceedings. The technical information does not necessarily reflect the official position of the sponsoring agencies or institutions represented by planning committee members, and inclusion and distribution herein does not constitute an endorsement of views expressed by the same. Printed materials included herein are not refereed publications. Citations should appear as follows. EXAMPLE: Authors. 2019. Title of presentation. Waste to Worth. Minneapolis, MN. April 22-26, 2019. URL of this page. Accessed on: today’s date.