Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 08 | Handling Livestock Waste: Part 2 Pastures and Lots
Transcript
- Episode 08 | Handling Livestock Waste: Part 2 Pastures and Lots 00:00:06:02 - 00:00:34:05 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast, episode number eight handling livestock waste. Part two of four Pastures and Lots. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. We're now joined by Jay Solomon, extension educator, to talk about pastures and lots. You know Jay, I'm not sure exactly what the split is, the state between confinement and pastures, especially for cattle, but I'm sure there are some best management practices. 00:00:34:07 - 00:01:05:20 Jay Solomon Right. And that's the split. And you hit it right on the money. The a lot of cattle out in there, that's, that's of concern to us. Especially we go into the winter. The things that we need to look at is back to that same term, make sure we keep any clean water that we can divert it out from pastures or the holding areas that we may have them in, just to kind of keep it clean, and, and not add to the pollution and not add to the, the mud in the, in the pan or in the, in the lot as well. 00:01:05:22 - 00:01:25:27 Jay Solomon One of the biggest things is if we can just keep them out on, ground where, it's away from the water systems, any bare ground they may be on. But more than that, if we can get vegetation on it, that could actually add pasture. Not just a, a dry loafing area if you do have to put them up. 00:01:26:00 - 00:01:47:20 Jay Solomon And knowing how we. I'm up here in the northwest corner, we've had a lot of wet conditions this last few months, last month, and going into winter here, concerns about, areas being wet and pulling animals off of pasture so they don't track up the pastures really bad. We don't want those feeding areas to be down low, down beside the creek. 00:01:47:22 - 00:02:07:24 Jay Solomon That's the one place we don't really want to put them up. Because that's that opens up to a lot of problems. We got increased erosion in general, but also part of that, what we're losing is manure rush straight into the creeks or into, waterways. So those are the kind of things we want to try to keep out of there if we can keep them up high. 00:02:07:24 - 00:02:23:22 Jay Solomon Basically, the concept to keep them high and dry is a much better approach to it. Recognize when going into winter, we want to maybe keep a little bit more sheltered, but, need to find some balance with that, as you go forward. 00:02:23:28 - 00:02:35:18 Todd Gleason So if there are areas where you're able to collect manure, confined spaces, those loafing areas, maybe other places in the barns, what do we do with that manure? 00:02:35:21 - 00:02:45:17 Todd Gleason While we're waiting, to, find an appropriate time to apply because I'm going to guess that winter time is not the best of times to apply manure. 00:02:45:17 - 00:03:00:20 Jay Solomon Well, exactly. We don't want to go back to, what we said earlier. Minimizing, applying on snow covered and frozen ground. Well, one of the key things is collecting that, if it's a is keeping it dry. 00:03:00:23 - 00:03:44:28 Jay Solomon If when collected is dry product stack it, keep it somewhat sheltered or covered is definitely the way to go. So we don't have a lot of extra moisture in there. We don't have that temptation for it to be washed away or leach leached away from that. It's definitely a a place to start from. Or if you've got a well, can set up just like we're doing on the confined areas, an area where you actually can contain that water as well, collect it and do the land application when we need to, in the early spring are, you know, yet this fall here, you know, get those areas applied before it actually freezes completely up. 00:03:45:01 - 00:03:48:10 Jay Solomon Just definitely the, the thing we need to try to do with that. 00:03:48:12 - 00:03:53:04 Todd Gleason And finally, can what you're feeding the animal make a difference in the nutrient runoff. 00:03:53:11 - 00:04:12:00 Jay Solomon We're starting to see some influence with that. Yes. As we look at what the diets have become, the nutritionists have really looked at what those diets are, what's going into them, and, and backed off, some of the swine operations and some of the dairies as well. 00:04:12:00 - 00:04:39:08 Jay Solomon We're seeing, reduction in phosphorus in particular. Just the amount of manure are going through it, reducing the amount of phosphorus going in. In the swine. They're adding phytase to it and actually improving the animal's utilization of phosphorus in the, in the ration to start with. And so, yeah, it basically reduces what's going all the way through the animal. 00:04:39:08 - 00:05:07:06 Jay Solomon If you put less into it, they're actually absorbing what they need to out of it. And you're passing less of it through. Seeing a little bit of the same thing with some of our nitrogen, just a little bit lower energy diets, really saving those diets in there to match that growth stage. So we're not wasting extra nitrogen, extra energy going through, that's not being utilized based on looking at, really management of those, of those diets. 00:05:07:08 - 00:05:31:14 Jay Solomon Has a, as a double benefit. One, we're not putting as much through the animal and into the manure that we got to deal with. And the flip side of it is that we, are not paying for it upfront on the on the, the content and going into the feed rations. Are there things that dairy producers need to consider other than just the manure affluent waste? 00:05:31:15 - 00:05:56:11 Jay Solomon Well, there are a few things that they need to think about. And, kind of the best management practices we might have missed was, you know, make sure we're collecting things like, your leachate from your silage. You know, cows waste, anything else where you've you've washed down or it's been water's been contaminated by by manure needs to be collected and treated basically as manure. 00:05:56:14 - 00:06:22:02 Jay Solomon One of the ones we see a lot of, of issues with smaller operation with operations is not thinking about that silage leachate or any compost leachate you've got, letting those two run out. They’re, that's a really high concentration of nutrients. Doesn't seem like that much of it, but it can really if it gets into a waterway. 00:06:22:04 - 00:06:44:05 Jay Solomon Really, that's, it carries a lot of nutrient with it. For what? A mouth is there and and can cause a lot of of, damage from the standpoint of, potential fish kills and that kind of stuff that we're concerned about in water. So making sure we get that containment of those, those, materials is important as well. 00:06:44:09 - 00:06:48:13 Todd Gleason Where are they going to put all of this? What kind of cropland or properties? 00:06:48:13 - 00:07:23:19 Jay Solomon In most cases, we're putting this back onto cropland and mostly going on to, corn and other grain production ground, which are which are our high, nitrogen phosphorus utilization. We also have some that are applying it back to, back to pastures or back to Hay Ground, which is a really good choice for, for someone to consider because that going back to a hay area, is where you're collecting the, the, the growth off of it. 00:07:23:19 - 00:08:04:05 Jay Solomon So you're pulling nutrients off in the way of pulling the biomass off, turn around and put, manure back on it. It it tends to absorb in very quickly because of the, the, all the plant material there and just all the growth going on and is immediately utilized back into the production of the plant. So really trying to encourage, producers to think about having some acreage they can do that with because it adds flexibility to be able to pull some of that manure out if you have a wet spring, are like, this year, we have a late harvest and you need to get on to some ground. 00:08:04:08 - 00:08:24:28 Jay Solomon To, to keep the manure container containment, in, in good shape. So you've got extra freeboard in there that you need, or just so you don't run out of time of doing the application sometime in the winter and early spring gives you that flexibility. And so definitely want to or talk about that opportunity as well. 00:08:25:05 - 00:08:28:00 Todd Gleason Jay Solomon is with the University of Illinois Extension. 00:08:28:03 - 00:08:33:27 Todd Gleason You've been listening to the Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast. I'm U of I Extension’s Todd Gleason.