Availability and Assimilative Capacity of Land Suitable for Manure Application

Executive Summary

· We located 9 Class I animal feeding operations in Saline County and 26 Class II or smaller operations. Of the 35 operations, 32 are primarily swine, 2 are beef, and one is a poultry operation.

· The county has an estimated 291,600 acres in cropland of which 77% is suitable for land application of manure based on current Missouri Department of Natural Resources rules. Primary crops grown based on acreage are soybean (47%), corn (40%) and wheat (13%).

· Land suitable for manure application was estimated to have an assimilation capacity of 33,170,000 pounds nitrogen and 10,250,000 pounds phosphate. These estimates were based on the nutrient removal capability of row crops in Saline County.

· Nutrient production was estimated for Class I operations only. These operations have approximately 55% of the swine numbers and 100% of the poultry in Saline County.

· The quantity of nutrients generated by animal feeding operations is dependent on the type of manure storage system and land application system. We analyzed five scenarios to provide the full range of potential nutrients from manure. (Table 1).

Table 1. Estimated amount of nitrogen or phosphate available for spreading from Class I animal feeding operations based on assumptions about manure handling methods.

/1 P availability values for surface or injected manure.

· Production of nutrients by animal feeding operations represents a small proportion of the current crop nutrient assimilation capacity of Saline County based on current crops and regulations.

Submitted by: John A. Lory and Chris Barnett
                     University of Missouri-Columbia