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June tours showcase eco-friendly manure treatment systemsNebraska A University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension tour June 3 or 5 will highlight how Nebraska livestock producers are minimizing their risk to the environment by installing vegetative treatment systems to handle livestock waste. Smaller cattle and cow-calf producers--those with 1,000 head or fewer--make up 90 percent of producers in Nebraska and often don't have runoff control for their open lots, said Chris Henry, University of Nebraska-Lincoln extension engineer. "UNL Extension is one of the only groups in the country developing and demonstrating solutions for animal feeding operations," Henry said. Due to the popularity of the tour in recent years, the Vegetative Treatment Systems for Feedlots and Cow-Calf Operations Tour will be offered twice--once on June 3 and again on June 5. Registration is limited to 48 participants per day. Online registration is available at http//afo.unl.edu. The cost of the tour is paid for a Nebraska Environmental Trust grant and a Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality Section 319 grant. Cattle producers--cow-calf, those with small feedlots and especially those considering expanding or building a new feedlot or backgrounding lot--should attend this tour, Henry said. Others, including natural resource districts, other local and government officials and commodity groups, also are encouraged to attend. Participants will learn what small producers are doing to protect the environment and grow the beef industry, learn about new cutting edge solutions to open lot runoff control, and see how Nebraska's livestock producers are finding economic solutions to minimize their environmental risk. The tour will meet at 8 a.m., at the Ramada Inn at Cornhusker Highway and I-80. The coach bus will depart Lincoln at 9 a.m. The first stop will be a 300-head feedlot near Beatrice, where a young producer has used a vegetative treatment system to return to the farm. Next the bus will travel to Adams to view two systems--a gravity vegetative treatment system and a sprinkler vegetative treatment system. The sprinkler vegetative treatment system was developed by UNL Extension. This unique system is the only of its kind in the U.S. The last stop will be near Crete for a cow-calf system, where a vegetative treatment system is used to control runoff from a feeding area devoid of vegetation. This also is a one-of-a-kind system in the U.S. A vegetative treatment system is used to control and treat the runoff from an open livestock lot. These systems are a substitute for the conventional holding pond. Instead of a pond, producers use an area of perennial grass called a vegetative treatment area. A vegetative treatment system controls the runoff by consuming the water and using the nutrients in the liquid runoff. For more information about this or the UNL Extension Livestock Producer Environmental Assistance Project, visit the LPEAP website at http://afo.unl.edu. This voluntary, cost-share project helps producers construct simple, low-maintenance systems, many of which are very economical. Since 2000, at least 60 individual designs have been developed among hundreds of individual site visits. This project is funded by a Nebraska Environmental Trust grant. Other project partners include: Nebraska Natural Resources Conservation Service, Little Blue Natural Resources District, Nebraska Cattlemen, Nebraska Farm Bureau Federation, Nebraska Pork Producers Association, Alliance for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska and UNL Extension. UNL Extension is in the university's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. 5/12/08 Date: 5/7/08
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