Midwest Manure Summit at Lambeau Field

Capturing and managing the value in your farm’s waste stream was the focus of the Midwest Manure Summit held March 24 and 25, 2009, at Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wis. Two full days of featured speakers educated producers, consultants, and others interested in manure management. Optional tours of the historic Lambeau Field were also a popular draw of the conference.

Frank Mitloehner of University of California-Davis took several questions after his discussion on odor management. Mitloehner described mitigation strategies for reducing odor on farms, as well as his experiences with projects on UC-Davis’ campus, and a village in Germany that will, and have, reduced odors. Both of these systems generated power through the use of methane digestion, and the German village is now off of the power grid.

Another speaker, Keri Cantrell of the USDA-ARS in South Carolina, outlined research on emerging technologies that turn waste into energy and are not yet commercially available. Instead of methane digestion, Cantrell described a potential for thermo-chemical conversions such as pyrolysis. Pyrolysis could greatly reduce hauling involved with typical manure management and produce a product known as bio-char which could be used as a soil amendment. If implemented, these technologies have the potential to allow farms to expand animal units without adding land needed for nutrient management planning.

Proceedings of the entire conference are expected to be available online shortly on the Midwest Manure Summit website.