The scope of precision farming has expanded beyond efficient input management, and now includes technology-based strategies for precision conservation of soil and water resources in agricultural and natural systems. The feasibility of precision conservation to be applied to manure management is hampered by technical variability compounding extant variability of nutrient and carbon crediting. This research illustrates a framework for studying and addressing the variability of spatial manure application rates at sub-field scales, or during the course of a single hauling. A side-discharge spreader model for applying liquid manure (LM) and solid manure (SM) was retrofitted with GPS, radio frequency, and rate monitoring technology (see figure) at a dairy farm in Wisconsin. An integrated precision monitoring system (see figure) tracked the location and mass flow rate of discharge from the manure spreader, and was developed with assistance from Kuhn-Knight, Inc. and the Washington State University Center for Precision Agriculture (WSU-CPA). The signal from the spreader is transmitted in near real-time through a wireless “backbone”, configured in a master-repeater-slave topology with the master-server residing at the University of Wisconsin. Objectives of this research were: 1) to develop a method of correlating a measurable parameter onboard the spreader with the rates of LM and SM applications to the field surface, and; 2) to use this method to compare the spatial scale of variation in manure application against the scale of processes occurring in the soil environment. A 2-parameter gamma function described the lateral dispersion of manure from the spreader, and parameters of this function were relatable to tension in a load-cell retrofitted to the expeller shaft (see figure). Given the ubiquitous use of side-discharge spreaders by many animal feeding operations, significant research questions arise with regards to the ability of these implements to achieve the agronomic and environmental goals of nutrient management planning.