Understanding Manure Management Behavior on Wisconsin Dairy Farms

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Understanding Manure Management Behavior on
Wisconsin Dairy Farms

• Lessons from Recent On-Farm Research
• Douglas Jackson-Smith (Utah State University)
• J. Mark Powell, Dan McCrory, Heather Saam (Univ
  of WI-Madison)

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Overview

• Present initial results of recent on-farm
  research
• Focus the logic of manure mgt
• Why do farmers spread manure (or not) on
  particular kinds of fields?
• What obstacles prevent farmers from incorporating
  manure?
• How do farmers view manure as a potential source
  of crop nutrients?
• Emphasis on small- and medium-sized integrated
  crop-dairy farms in Wisconsin

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Starting Points

• Small- and Mid-sized livestock operations are
  important contributors to nutrient-water quality
  problems and are not going away
• These operations do not always respond well to
  traditional approaches
• Many technical or mgt solutions are inappropriate
  to their situation
• To broaden research and policy agenda, we need to
  better understand these operations
• Important to find representative farms

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Constraints to Proper Manure Management (Nowak et
al 1998)

• Institutional factors (research, extension)
• Engineering factors (box spreaders)
• Private Sector factors (motivation of input
  suppliers, risk avoidance)
• Economic factors (economies of scale, risk, labor
  constraints)
• Social-psychological factors (invisibility of
  impacts, safety weather concerns, low status of
  manure handling, vocabulary)
• Environmental factors (land constraints,
  confinement systems, topography)

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Background to OFG study

• Integrated Research Into Nutrient Cycling on
  Wisconsin Dairy Farms
• Included Studies of Feeding/Diet, Manure
  Handling/Storage, Field Application
• On-farm component ? Attempt to model nutrient
  cycling on TYPICAL FARMS
• Fall 2002 in-depth interviews used here
• Modeling farms ongoing
• Follow-up interviews planned
• USDA NRI (Ag Systems) IFAFS funding

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Study of 54 Dairy Farms On Farmers Ground

• Within each region
• 18 farms selected
• 6 farms in each randomly selected from each
  animal density category

NE region
SC region
SW region
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Profile of Respondents

• Typical of Wisconsin dairy farms
• Mean herd size 88 (median 66)
• Most 50-99 cows (10 had 200 cows)
• 80 stanchion barns (20 parlor/freestall)
• 65 lbs milk shipped / cow / day
• Mean cropland 275 acres (median 198)
• Median 3.4 acres cropland / cow
• Avg age 48
• 77 rely mainly on farm income for hh

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Manure Management Behavior

• Roughly half have some manure storage
• Mostly concrete lagoons
• Average 280 days storage
• Most haul manure to fields daily
• Few incorporate manure after spreading
• Few have written nutrient mgt plans
• Storage affects manure mgt behavior
• Though not as much as we might expect

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Understanding Manure Spreading Behavior

• Previous work found manure gap
• Farmers only utilizing 23-44 of cropland
• Why?
• Hypotheses
• Absence of storage
• Labor or machinery shortage
• Weather or soil conditions
• Distance of fields
• Land tenure

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Results

• Structured Question
• How important are the following factors in your
  decision to spread on a particular field?
• Open-ended Question
• What kinds of fields do you seek to spread
  manure?
• Asked separately by season (fall, winter, spring,
  summer)

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Incorporating Manure

• 50 overall do not incorporate at all
• 25 of farms incorporate lt 1/4th
• 10 incorporate 25-50 of manure
• Why? (hypotheses)
• Management system (daily haul, no-till)
• Labor equipment constraints
• Seasonality weather
• Lack of concern/motivation

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Perceptions about Manure as Fertilizer Source

• Open-ended questions
• What is the biggest advantage of manure in
  comparison to commercial fertilizers?
• What is the biggest disadvantage of manure
  compared to commercial fertilizer?

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Lessons and Conclusions

• Small and mid-sized farms face many constraints
  to use of recommended manure management systems
• No storage
• Inability to incorporate
• Inability to get to many fields on timely basis
• These factors are not just poor motivation or a
  lack of information

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Implications

• Blanket policies to NM regulation might
  disproportionately impact small- and mid-sized
  operations
• Unrealistic Nutrient Mgt Plans might be hard to
  follow (if enforced)
• Alternatively, policies and technical solutions
  limited to the largest operations might fail to
  provide opportunities for improved outcomes

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More Implications

• Develop technical solutions and mgt systems that
  work within these constraints
• Education/Info is not enough
• May not be optimal (from NM perspective), but
  can improve performance

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Suggestions for Future Research

• Assume integrated crop/livestock systems
• Assume many will not have long-term storage
• More information about timing and placement of
  manure (vis-à-vis cropping patterns and landscape
  features)
• Low-tech/cost options for manure handling and
  storage (in barn, farmstead, spreading)

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QUESTIONS COMMENTS?