Nutrient production from Korean poultry and loading estimations for cropland.

Background: Poultry breeding has increased by 306% in Korea, inevitably increasing the production of manure which may contribute to environmental pollution. The nutrients (NP) in the manure are essential for crop cultivation and soil fertility when applied as compost. Excess nutrients from manure can be accumulated on the land and can lead to eutrophication.

Nutrient variations from swine manure to agricultural land.

Objective: Swine manure in Korea is separated into solid and liquid phases which are composted separately and then applied on land. The nutrient accumulation in soil has been a big issue in Korea but the basic investigation about nutrient input on arable land has not been achieved in detail. Within the nutrient production from livestock at the national level, most values are calculated by multiplication of the number of animals with the excreta unit per animal.

Nutrient production from dairy cattle manure and loading on arable land.

Objective: Along with increasing livestock products via intensive rearing, the accumulation of livestock manure has become a serious issue due to the fact that there is finite land for livestock manure recycling via composting. The nutrients from livestock manure accumulate on agricultural land and the excess disembogues into streams causing eutrophication. In order to systematically manage nutrient loading on agricultural land, quantifying the amount of nutrients according to their respective sources is very important.

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

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.