Manure Matters, Volume 8, Number 3

How much can you pay to have manure applied to your land? Livestock feeders often need more land for manure application to avoid excessive buildup of soil phosphorus. In some cases, they request payment to reduce transport costs. When is manure a good buy for crop production? Manure supplies the full complement of nutrients needed by crops and often helps to improve soil biological and physical properties such as the rate of water infiltration. Because of these soil improvements, crop yield is often more with manure application than with fertilizers. One way of estimating the value of manure is to use results from trials and determine the value of the fertilizer replaced and the increase in productivity. Several trials have been conducted with farmers under the Nebraska Soybean & Feed Grains Profitability Project (http://onfarmresearch. unl.edu/)

Manure Matters, Volume 10, Number 6

Phosphorous Runoff Risk During Years following Manure Application Manure application may result in increased water infiltration and reduced runoff but it can also lead to excessive soil P levels and increased P concentration in runoff. Research was conducted to determine the residual effects of composted manure on runoff loss of water, sediment and phosphorus, and to evaluate soil P tests in prediction of P concentration in runoff. The residual effects of previously applied composted feedlot manure were studied from 2001 to the spring of 2004 at a runoff facility established in 1998 at the UNL Agricultural Research and Development Center. The runoff facility consisted of 21 plots of 36 ft length with a median slope of 5.5%. Low P and high P compost had been applied annually three times in 1998 to 2001 resulting in total phosphate applications of 1500 and 2300 lb/A. Irrigated corn and soybeans were grown in rotation. Bray-1 P in the surface 2” of soil was increased from 16 ppm with no compost applied to 780 ppm with application of high P compost. Runoff loss was more with the no-compost treatment than with compost applied (Table 1). P concentration in runoff, especially bioavailable P, increased as the amount of P applied in compost increased. Bio-available P loss in runoff (lb/Ac) was generally more where compost was applied but the effect of higher concentration with the compost treatments was partly offset by the reduced runoff with the compost treatments. The effect of reduced runoff was even more pronounced for total P loss. In fact, total P loss for 2002-4 where no compost was applied was as much as with the high compost treatment. In interpreting these results, we need to remember that plot length was just 36’; given that runoff and erosion potential are dependent on slope length, the actual losses measured are likely to be considerably less than would occur at a typical field scale with 5.5% slope

Manure Matters, Volume 8, Number 3

How much can you pay to have manure applied to your land? Livestock feeders often need more land for manure application to avoid excessive buildup of soil phosphorus. In some cases, they request payment to reduce transport costs. When is manure a good buy for crop production? Manure supplies the full complement of nutrients needed by crops and often helps to improve soil biological and physical properties such as the rate of water infiltration. Because of these soil improvements, crop yield is often more with manure application than with fertilizers. One way of estimating the value of manure is to use results from trials and determine the value of the fertilizer replaced and the increase in productivity. Several trials have been conducted with farmers under the Nebraska Soybean & Feed Grains Profitability Project (http://onfarmresearch. unl.edu/)

Manure Matters, Volume 10, Number 9

New Manure Use Planning Tools for Nebrask

An investigation of alternative bean seed marketing channels in Uganda

The distribution of newly released bean seed is often a weak link in the technology transfer process. To assist national commodity programs to devise cost-effective delivery systems, research was conducted in Uganda to test the appropriateness of bean seed distribution through four non-conventional channels: rural shops, a rural health clinic, women`s groups and an NGO. The findings confirm the feasibility of distributing seed packets through market and non-market channels and show that each delivery system has advantages and disadvantages which must be assessed by seed suppliers in a country-specific context. The paper offers guidelines for the distribution of new bean varieties by formal institution

Topological Crystalline Insulator and Quantum Anomalous Hall States in IV-VI based Monolayers and their Quantum Wells

Different from the two-dimensional (2D) topological insulator, the 2D topological crystalline insulator (TCI) phase disappears when the mirror symmetry is broken, e.g., upon placing on a substrate. Here, based on a new family of 2D TCIs - SnTe and PbTe monolayers - we theoretically predict the realization of the quantum anomalous Hall effect with Chern number C = 2 even when the mirror symmetry is broken. Remarkably, we also demonstrate that the considered materials retain their large-gap topological properties in quantum well structures obtained by sandwiching the monolayers between NaCl layers. Our results demonstrate that the TCIs can serve as a seed for observing robust topologically non-trivial phases.Comment: 5 pages, submitted on 27th Feb 201

Soil Aggregation: A Practical Exercise for Crop Producer Education

The importance of soil physical properties to crop growth is often under-estimated by producers. Simple tests are needed for demonstration of variations in soil physical conditions due to soil properties and management. Tests that can be used by producers in their fields are preferred. A test of wet aggregate stability of soil is described that can be used in teaching crop producers about soil physical properties. The test requires little equipment and less than 10 minutes of teaching time. The test is also appropriate for use by producers to diagnose problems and monitor trends on their fields