Swine Lagoon Effluent Studies
Willian Kranz, Irrigation Specialist
University of Nebraska
Northeast Research and Extension Center
Concord, NE
Livestock production facilities for swine often use open lagoons as temporary storage facilities for animal manure and water used to flush manure from the production building. In eastern Nebraska, the evaporation loss from the lagoon water surface is insufficient to evaporate the flush water plus the rainfall received each year. Thus, producers are forced to distribute the manure using spreaders or irrigation systems.
In many cases, the manure is distributed to land areas closest to the facilities to minimize hauling and distribution costs. Large production facilities have a much larger problem due to the shear volume of manure produced. Few of these facilities control enough land to distribute the manure in an environmentally safe manner to land areas planted to traditional crops.
Our research team has evaluated alfalfa as a crop that has commercial value and an extended application season, and fixes a lot of nitrogen. The dry matter produced annually by irrigated alfalfa may contain between 800 and 850 pounds of nitrogen per acre. A new isoline of alfalfa was developed by the University of Minnesota that does not fix its own nitrogen, but maintains production capacity similar to the fixating type of alfalfa. The isoline relies on the nitrogen similar to how corn relies on it.
Funded by the Burlington Northern Foundation Endowment fund, the project seeks to establish the level of swine manure nitrogen that can be harvested by fixating and nonfixating alfalfas without negative impacts on water quality.
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