Friday, March 5, 2010

Manure Value

A dairy cow weighing 1,000 pounds voids about 12 tons of solid and liquid manure in a year - worth, in round numbers, $28.00 at the market price of the three elements of fertility contained. Under proper conditions from 70 to 80 per cent of the manure voided by farm animals may be saved and returned to the soil.
The Ohio Experiment Station obtained an actual value of $4.69 per ton for manure when applied at the rate of 8 tons to the acre in a five-year rotation. The average of all their extensive investigations showed an average value of $2.97 measured in increased crops grown.
The Purdue Experiment Station reports crop increases worth from $2 to $8 with an average of $5 for each ton of manure applied, the variation depending upon the fertility of the soil and the rate of application.
But this does not tell all the story. The dairy farmer usually is a, purchaser rather than a seller of grain, and by this means adds constantly to the fertility of his farm. The purchase of concentrated feeds adds a large amount of fertility to the farm. Furthermore, the keeping of dairy cattle usually means that a large proportion of the land is kept in grass, consequently making it possible to prevent washing and erosion of the soil, which is responsible for the rapid deterioration of many farms.
It is a well-known fact that the yield of grain per acre of the agricultural lands of Denmark, Germany, and parts of England where dairy farming has been followed for a period of years, has materially increased during the past fifty years.

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