Manure Manager

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To sustainably harness cow manure’s usefulness, fire it up


September 8, 2021  by Brian Friedlander, Cornell University

Cow manure – a longtime agricultural waste headache for dairy farmers – soon may ignite a new sustainable fertilizing trend.

Judiciously decomposing organic matter from 700 degrees Fahrenheit to 1,200 degrees F, without oxygen – a process known as pyrolysis, very different from incineration – and retaining nutrients from dairy lagoons can transform manure into a manageable, ecologically friendly biochar fertilizer, according to new research published July 22 in Nature Scientific Reports.

That would allow dairy producers to stop storing excreta in on-farm lagoons or spreading it only in nearby fields. | READ MORE

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