While the North American Manure Expo may not reach bucket level status for your vacation plans, for anyone replacing or upgrading equipment for managing manure, it is the place to be. One emerging theme common at this year’s Manure Expo was “Precision Manure”. This article will share a few observations around my conversations with vendors and manure applicators on “Precision Manure”.

Animal agriculture often endures criticism from neighbors and consumers relative to sustainability. But when it comes to management of carbon and nutrients, animal agriculture has a positive story to share. Many environmental and sustainability organizations promote the importance of a “circular economy” for increasing sustainability. Those engaged with Nebraska agriculture should help our neighbors and consumers recognize agriculture’s long term practice of implementing this circular economy. This article will help introduce agriculture’s circular economy for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), carbon (C), and other nutrients and messages you might share with neighbors and consumers about the Nebraska Advantage for sustainability.

An undesirable combination of precipitation events and freeze/thaw cycles has contributed to some very muddy feedlot surfaces in the winter and spring of 2019 in Nebraska. Preventative design and management options exist for minimizing the occurrence and extent of muddy open feedlot conditions, but very few ‘fixes’ exist for addressing muddy conditions once they are in place. Additional information on your options follows...

Iowa State University researchers concluded from a long-term field study that poultry manure, when applied at a rate to meet the crop nitrogen (N) requirements, can reduce nitrate loss and achieve equal or better yields in corn soybean production systems. While this research focused on nitrate (NO­3-N) loss by field-tile drains (typically placed 3 to 6 feet deep), similar trends would be anticipated in Nebraska for nitrate leaching below the crop root zone and the eventual impacts on surface and ground water quality.