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This factsheet for farmers describes ways to control the harmful effects of excess nutrients while maintaining healthy, productive farm crops. Steps covered include testing your soil and following the soil testing recommendations, setting realistic yield goals, choosing the most suitable nitrogen sources, applying nitrogen correctly, using manure as a nutrient source, controlling erosion, managing water flow and fencing animals away from water flow.
This publication discusses how to use controlled drainage as way to to reduce nutrient losses from agricultural land to surface waters and groundwater. It includes information on controlled drainage systems, structure location and management, and water quality and crop yield benefits.
This publication provides basic information on animal production systems and reviews the movement of nitrogen in concentrated feeding operations for swine.
This publication provides updated recommendations for phosphorus fertilizer application in corn, soybean, and small grains crops. It includes background and historical information about phosphorus critical levels, phosphorus rate recommendations, phosphorus accumulation in soils, and changes in recommendations.
This publication provides nitrogen and potassium fertilizer recommendations for optimum floral hemp yield and cannabidiol production while also understanding how nutrient rates affect THC production.
Boron (B) is a critical micronutrient essential for the growth, development, and productivity of vegetable crops. Although required in trace amounts, boron plays a fundamental role in plant physiology, influencing cell wall integrity, reproductive success, and metabolic processes. In North Carolina, where diverse soil types and vegetable cropping systems coexist, managing boron availability is vital to optimize yields and ensure crop quality. This publication provides a comprehensive overview of boron’s role in plant health, its behavior in soils, and strategies for effective management.
This publication summarizes research conducted in North Carolina that evaluated sorghum's potential as a bioenergy feedstock when planted on land that receives large quantities of animal waste effluent.
Transporting livestock manure to nutrient deficient fields can often be cost prohibitive without manure processing. Pyrolysis converts manure solids into biochar resulting in significant mass and volume reduction, while retaining high nutrient value. This fact sheet introduces the basics of pyrolysis technology, discusses the benefits and end uses of manure-derived biochar, and provides an overview of cost and technology limitations.
Screw press separators can divide a single by-product stream into a solid and liquid stream to improve handling and management. These processing systems are commonly used in manure handling systems but can be used for management of many organic streams. For example, a wet digestion system that accepts food waste may also integrate the technology following anaerobic digestion. Regardless of the application, screw press separators are more efficient in removing solids from manure slurry streams (greater than four percent total solids or dry matter content) than with more dilute liquid manure streams. The systems are known to improve manure handling as well as reduce environmental impacts of livestock systems.
Manure is among the lowest methane yielding feedstocks in digesters, but it is widely used in agricultural anaerobic digestion systems due to its continuous availability in one location, its capacity to resist changes in pH, and its relatively easy integration into existing manure management systems. System types, costs, and environmental benefits are discussed.
This factsheet summarizes key technologies used to produce pellets from animal manures and the impact of process variables (temperature, pressure, moisture content) on the final product. The factsheet reviews key quality indices used to evaluate manure pellet quality. It also presents an overview of how scale, cost and environmental benefits, and trade-offs impact technology adoption.
