Session Overview - Trade-Offs in Managing Manure in No-till and Pasture Soils.

No-till is a best management practice to prevent soil erosion, but surface applications of manure are typical in no-till systems. Surface application of manure leads to losses of ammonia and increases risks of nutrient losses in runoff. Managing manure in no-till and reduced tillage systems remains a major concern, because tillage has traditionally been used to incorporate manure. Surface applied manure that is not incorporated into soil provides inefficient delivery of manure nutrients to crops due to environmental losses of nutrients and also serves as a major source of nuisance odors. Odors issues are becoming much more common as the population increases and more private homes are built in rural areas. An array of new technologies exist to facilitate the incorporation of liquid manures into soil with restricted or minor soil disturbance. These include shallow disk injection, chisel injection, aeration infiltration, and high pressure injection. Some of these are consistent with no-till, depending on state and federal guidelines. This session introduction will summarize the issues involved with these new technologies with respect to agronomic, soil and environmental variables. We will also discuss trade-offs in various manure incorporation technologies, in terms of environmental versus agronomic effectiveness.