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A closer look at irrigating manure

The use of irrigation equipment for spreading manure is gaining popularity.  Center pivots and travelling guns can go in a field that is too wet for tankers, there is no need to run heavy tankers repeatedly over rural roads and it usually is more cost-efficient.

However, there are objections to the practice, the biggest being the idea of putting pathogens into the air.  Wood County, Wisconsin has created an ad hoc committee to take a look at the practice in an effort to determine if it should be more closely regulated or, as some suggest, outlawed altogether.

Becky Larson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.  They have been studying the pros-and-cons of irrigation spreading.  They are measuring just how far those pathogens may travel from center pivots and travelling guns and assessing the impact that wind speed, temperature and other factors may have on that travel.

Larson talks about the practice 2:03 mp3

 

 

*thanks Sevie Kenyon, UW-Madison CALS