John Panuska: precise phosphorous management
John Panuska, Faculty Associate
Department of Biological Systems Engineering
UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
jcpanuska@wisc.edu
(608) 262-0605
Phosphorous managed for the bottom line
3:02 – Total Time
0:23 – Reducing phosphorous in dairy feed
1:07 – Mapping manure application risk
1:58 – Decision-making with software
2:25 – Examples of management changes
2:50 – Lead out
TRANSCRIPT
Sevie Kenyon: John, welcome to our microphone. John, I understand that there’s a series of things producers can do to manage phosphorus. Can you start out by describing one of them?
John Panuska: Some research was done on the amount of phosphorus that was being added to dairy diets and what was found was that the amount of phosphorus that was going into the feed mix was more then was needed. By reducing the amount of phosphorus that was being added to the feed ration a producer could not only save money by having to buy less of that material for that feed mix, but he could also reduce his environmental foot print or his environmental impact on the landscape.
Sevie Kenyon: John, are there some other things they can do once they have spread their manure?
John Panuska: One of the tools we have available for that is the manure management advisory system. What that tool does is it provides a couple of mapping capabilities. One is a short-term run-off risk assessment to determine what the risk of run-off will be on any given day and it projects that risk out three days. And then there’s also a longer-term risk assessment tool for P application planning and they evaluate the risk of spreading manure on different sites based on soil type, slope, time of the year and land management and are based on the existing Wisconsin nutrient management practice standards.
Sevie Kenyon: John, how do producers tie all this information together to make a decision?
John Panuska: There’s another tool out there called Snap Plus, which is a nutrient management planning software, and allows producers to plan out where and how much manure they can apply in a landscape and also allows them to better manage their soil test phosphorus levels.
Sevie Kenyon: John, do you have any examples of how you’ve seen this work in the field?
John Panuska: This can involve a change in tillage. It can involve changes in rotation perhaps, so there are a number of things that can be done that are relatively low cost and can work within a producer’s existing management system that can not only reduce their risk of P loss, but also in some cases improve their bottom line.
Sevie Kenyon: We’ve been visiting today with John Panuska, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin, in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison, Wisconsin and I’m Sevie Kenyon.