Farmscape for June 3, 2007  (Episode 2864)

A University of Saskatchewan soil scientist recommends both soil testing and manure nutrient analysis to ensure crops receive the optimum rates nutrients.

The University of Saskatchewan, in collaboration with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, has been conducting long and short term manure fertilizer trials on sites throughout Saskatchewan since the early 1990's.

Soil research scientist Dr. Jeff Schoenau says liquid swine manure, for example, is very dilute typically running at 0.2 to 0.4 percent nitrogen by weight compared commercial liquid urea ammonium nitrate solution which is 28 per cent dense and the amount of available nutrients in manure will vary depending on the type of manure.

Clip-Dr. Jeff Schoenau-University of Saskatchewan

Certainly one of the things to keep in mind is that not all of the nutrient contained in manure is in a plant available form.

In fact for some manures, like cattle penning manure, only a small proportion of the nitrogen would be available in the year of application.

So it's important to have manure tested to know the total amount of nutrient being applied so that you have some idea of the balance, the loading and also what portion is available so that you know what is actually going to come out and be available for uptake and whether you may need to supplement with some commercial fertilizer.

For example in liquid swine manure typically more than 50 percent of the nitrogen is plant available in the year of application but for some of the cattle penning manure with lots of straw we've found less that 10 percent of the nitrogen is available.

Dr. Schoenau notes we're going through a period now with rising input costs including the price of commercial fertilizer and he believes, given those price increases, it makes looking at manure as a nutrient source that much more important.

He's convinced through good manure management practices one can realize a lot of benefit these days from the nutrients contained in that source.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council