Investigation of Hanwoo manure management and estimation of nutrient loading coefficients on land application

Abstract

Background: In order to prepare for the regulation about the limit of manure production, the status of manure management and the amount of nutrients in the compost discharged from Hanwoo breeding farm shall be known. This study aimed to find the practical amount of nutrients (volatile solids, VS; total nitrogen, T-N; total phosphorus, T-P) in manure, and compost samples collected from 40 Hanwoo breeding farms and the loss of the nutrients was calculated during the composting period, which supports to develop nutrient loading coefficients (NLCs) for each nutrient. Results: Although the addition of bedding materials for composting caused the increase of the VS amount before composting, the comparison of VS, N, and P amounts in between manure and compost showed the lower VS by 4 % as well as T-N and T-P amounts by 69 and 40 %, respectively, of which values were corresponded with the NLCs of 0.96, 0.31, and 0.60 for VS, N, and P, respectively, based on the questionnaire, and sample analyses. Considering with the environmental impacts including land application from Hanwoo manure, P loss should be zero before and after composting. In this regard, nitrogen loss of 50 % occurs and VS was increased by 30 %. In addition, feasible cases for the calculations based on the notification from Ministry of Environment were compared with this study. Conclusions: The development of NLCs from Hanwoo manure in this study implies that the loss of nutrients in manure occurs during the composting or storing period. The mass balances of N and P from livestock manure to land application may be overestimated over the practical values. It is necessary to build up the database about each livestock category other than Hanwoo.