Regulations are a commonplace way of managing manure. To keep them from piling up, Dr. Doug Beegle says it’s as simple as a little common sense. A distinguished professor of agronomy at Penn State University, Beegle provides some things to think about when handling manure, as well as what to do if regulations are afoot in your area.

The EPA’s first comprehensive national system for mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in the U.S. requires reporting by 25 industrial categories of direct emitting sources – and dairy farms of certain sizes will most likely fall under this regulatory umbrella.

Cargill, a company well known for the inputs it can provide to a dairy, is now turning its focus to outputs. By installing three anaerobic digesters on dairy farms in southern Idaho, Cargill looks to gain insight into renewable energy and grow its trading business.

As we hit a time in the growing season where things typically slow down a little, now may be the best time to take a few hours to plan your fall and winter manure applications. Although spring is the best time to apply manure, few of us have the storage capabilities to apply all our manure in the spring. This article is for those who will need to apply manure this fall and possibly this winter.

A recently completed study by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and the Department of Natural Resources has increased the understanding of air emissions and odors on larger-sized livestock farms, and lays the groundwork for future studies in this important area, officials say.

News reports have surfaced detailing flash fires and explosions in livestock buildings while liquid pit manure was being agitated and pumped. For this reason, Extension staff are urging caution when agitating and pumping manure from pits beneath buildings.

With odor climbing near the top of things dairymen should regulate, the Patz Corporation developed a way to zap it from a dairy’s list of concerns. Its new OZy manure treatment system released in August uses electricity to treat manure prior to storage or land application. Manure with less than 8 percent solids is drawn from a storage vessel into the machine.

Liquid manure is a valuable source of nutrients and organic matter for crop production and may be applied by a variety of methods including irrigation, surface spreading and shallow subsurface injection. With a low nutrient concentration, liquid animal manure may be applied at relatively high volumes, but it is generally recommended that it not be applied at rates that exceed the soil infiltration rate, nor exceed the amount needed to bring the soil to field water-holding capacity. Liquid manure discharges from agricultural drains have been reported in soils with subsurface (tile) drainage due to macropore flow.