Welcome to The Manure Scoop

The Manure Scoop

Hello and welcome to my blog, The Manure Scoop. Within this blog I'll try to deliver timely information about manure management, treatment, and land application, as well as other manure issues relevant to Iowa.
Some of the information will be geared at helping you maximize the use of your manure as a resource for crop or energy production, while at other times I'll focus on how different decisions can impact soil, water and air quality for better or worse. Finally I'll try to give you a flavor of what the future might hold and the technology that is changing the way we think about animal agriculture and manure management.

Now for a bit about me. I'm currently an assistant professor and extension specialist at Iowa State University, where my work focuses on animal production systems, especially their manure. You might by thinking why would someone want to work on manure, that sounds like a dirty job, and at times you'd be right. Working with manure certainly has its challenges, but what doesn't, and just as importantly the use of manure offers a chance to improve our use of a great natural fertilizer and improve farm sustainability. Growing up on a small dairy farm in central Wisconsin I had the opportunity to experience first hand some of the benefits of utilizing manure as well as some of the challenges we face in our manure utilization decisions.

So as we look forward in the coming weeks and months I hope we have a chance to get to know each other and you find some information here useful. If there are certain things you would like to hear more about or you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section below and I'll do my best to get them answered in a timely manner.

Dan