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Farmers Turning to Manure During Fertilizer Shortage

Warren, RI, May 2, 2008 --- Farmers worldwide are being affected by the lack of supply and higher prices of nitrogen fertilizer. The shortage of fertilizer is one of the factors in the increase of food prices globally. With no short-term relief in site, farms are turning to the traditional use of manure to fertilize their crops.

On April 30, 2008, the New York Times reported in their article “Shortages Threatened Farmers’ Key Tool: Fertilizer” that “In the United States, farmers in Iowa eager to replenish nutrients in the soil have increased the age-old practice of spreading hog manure on fields.” The article reports that one farm plans to use manure on 10 percent of its land, saving approximately $50,000 annually.

But farmers know that manure does not have as much of the valuable nitrogen as chemical fertilizer, so a lot more manure is needed per acre to have the same results. Plus, farmers usually pump their lagoons in the fall to free up manure storage for with winter. But when the manure is spread in the fall after crops have been harvested, the nutrients eventually dissipate and are of little use to the crops. Farms also pump in the spring to fertilizer their new crops. This is where manure treatment becomes valuable. Farms that use Pro-Act Biotech’s system find they are able to make better use of their superior manure fertilizer and spend a lot less on chemical fertilizer.

Recent on-farm testing has shown that Pro-Act Biotech’s biologically active manure, when compared to untreated manure, has a larger percentage of inorganic nitrogen which is immediately available for plant use. Pro-Act converts organic nitrogen to inorganic nitrogen (ammonium) which is more available and ready to use by plants. Under most conditions, ammonium is volatile and normally evaporates to the air where it is lost from the manure lagoon. But Pro-Act’s three-stage digester counteracts this. Much less ammonium goes to atmosphere, allowing farmers to retain more of that valuable nitrogen fertilizer for their crops.

The best way for farms to take advantage of the nutrients in their manure water is by irrigating their crops with the lagoon top water. However, untreated lagoons have a higher amount of phosphorus in their top water, limiting the amount they can irrigate. Untreated manure contains six to ten pounds of phosphorus per thousand gallons. By comparison, manure top water treated by Pro-Act’s system contains less than two pounds per 1,000 gallons. Since treated manure top water has significantly less phosphorus than untreated, farms using Pro-Act can irrigate at least three times as much, supplying their crops nitrogen needs with manure water without the risk burning their crops.

Getting the nutrients to the crops through irrigation is also a lot cheaper. Because farms can irrigate three times as much when using Pro-Act, they haul a lot less manure which is much more labor intensive and requires fuel.

A Pro-Act customer in Troy, PA saw the difference after irrigating one field with Pro-Act treated lagoon water: “We irrigated the corn field after we planted and went on about our business,” explains Roy Beardslee of Lottahill Farms Dairy. “Half way through the season we noticed it was taller than other fields, and then it just kept on going toward the sky. We have to think that the treated manure made the difference, because we didn’t do anything different than we usually do.”
 

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Irrigated with untreated manure water.

Irrigated with treated manure water.