Developing Safe, Efficient and Environmentally Sound Management Practices For The Use of Animal Manure

<p>Obj 1: Enhance the benefits of using animal manure as means of improving soil productivity for longterm production systems. 1.1 Improve soil health/quality through a longterm mngmnt practice involving animal manure, cover crop, &amp; crop rotation. 1.2 Determine if poultry litter application timing (fall/spring) &amp; cover crop (cover crop/no cover crop) affects on corn N use efficiency &amp; yield. 1.3 Develop improved models for describing phosphorus cycling in soils amended with animal manure. 1.4 Develop an energy-efficient &amp; cost-effective method of capturing ammonia from animal facilities &amp; subsequent usage as fertilizer. 1.5 Evaluate poultry litter application on the incidence of Clostridium botulinum in haylage forage harvest systems &amp; stand persistence. 1.6 Improve sustainability through a management strategy using cover crop grazing &amp; animal manure to improve soil quality &amp; fertility while increasing grain &amp; livestock production. 1.7 Combining a multi-proxy investigation of agricultural contaminant transport in Karst groundwater systems &amp; informal education to improve stewardship &amp; best management practices. Obj 2: Develop strategies for managing the survival &amp; transport of antibiotics, pathogens &amp; indicator species through agroecosystems. 2.1 Determine whether biochar-amended sand filters are an effective management practice for removing pathogenic &amp; indicator microorganisms from tile drainage waters. 2.2 Characterize persistence and transmission of antibiotics, antibiotic resistance (AR) genes, AR mobile genetic elements and AR bacteria through agro-ecosystems. 2.3 Determine factors controlling adhesion &amp; survival of manure-borne pathogens in manured soils &amp; on crops &amp; identify mitigation strategies. 2.4 Develop of methods for measuring antibiotics in agricultural samples &amp; the correlation of the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. 2.5 Develop a strategy for rapid detection &amp; deletion of antibiotic resistance genes using DNA-binding domain based nucleases. Obj 3: Assess gaseous &amp; particulate matter emissions resulting from animal prod. facil. &amp; manure application sites. 3.1 Develop methods for the determination of VOC that contribute to malodorous emissions from field applied manures &amp; use these methods to compare emissions from different manure application methods to field crops. 3.2 Obtain field measurements of the temporal variability of gas &amp; particulate matter emissions. 3.3 Determine the fate of atmospheric N and sulfur emissions from agricultural systems. 3.4 Measure &amp; model the fates of VOCs, PM, &amp; GHGs from agricultural systems. 3.5 Model the chemical partitioning of N compounds between gas &amp; particulate phase. Obj 4: Improve production efficiency &amp; emissions management of renewable bioenergy production systems using technologies such as anaerobic digesters. 4.1 Investigate biogas production and substrate utilization of poultry litter &amp; use microaeration to improve biogas production. 4.2 Optimize anaerobic digestion of poultry wastes to reduce emissions &amp; obtain bioenergy for sustainability. 4.3 Develop novel &amp; cost-effective composite alginate filter materials to capture ammonia, GHG, odors from livestock prod. facil.</p>