Dietary composition and particle size effects on swine manure characteristics and gas emissions

Abstract

Nutrients excreted from animals affect the nutritive value of manure as a soil amendment as well as the composition of gases emitted from manure storage facilities. There is a dearth of information, however, on how diet type in combination with dietary particle size affects nutrients deposited into manure storage facilities and how this affects manure composition and gas emissions. To fill this knowledge gap, an animal feeding trial was performed to evaluate potential interactive effects between feed particle size and diet composition on manure characteristics and manure-derived gaseous emissions. Forty-eight finishing pigs housed in individual metabolism crates that allowed for daily collection of urine and feces were fed diets differing in fiber content and particle size. Urine and feces were collected and stored in 446-L stainless steel containers for 49 d. There were no interactive effects between diet composition and feed particle size on any manure or gas emission parameter measured. In general, diets higher in fiber content increased manure nitrogen (N), carbon (C), and total volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations and increased manure VFA emissions but decreased manure ammonia emissions. Decreasing the particle size of the diet lowered manure N, C, VFAs, phenolics, and indole concentrations and decreased manure emissions of total VFAs. Neither diet composition nor particle size affected manure greenhouse gas emissions.

Challenges and opportunities for improving nitrogen utilization efficiency for more sustainable pork production

“…Results from these studies have shown low NUE (30 to 43%) based on the amount of N retained as a percentage of total dietary N consumed. These N-flow values are supported by data conducted using an animal metabolism crate manure storage system designed to simulate manure storage conditions in typical swine facilities (Trabue and Kerr, 2014;Kerr et al, 2018;Trabue et al, 2019a;Trabue et al, 2019b;Kerr et al, 2020;Trabue et al, 2021a;Trabue et al, 2021b;Trabue et al, 2022). In these studies, calculated mass balance of N did not, however, account for all of the consumed N, with these researchers speculating that the difference may be due to ammonia losses from metabolism crates and flooring surfaces during the fecal and urine collection process which has been shown to represent 19 to 25% of the N consumed (Burton and Beauchamp, 1986;van Kempen et al, 2003;Li et al, 2011;Costa, 2017).…”

“…In a similar and inconsistent manner, pigs fed diets containing increased dietary fiber have shown an increase (Velthof et al, 2005;Jarret et al, 2011a;Jarret et al, 2011b;Li et al, 2011) or no change (Kerr et al, 2006) in CH 4 emissions; decreased (Kerr et al, 2006) or no effect (Li et al, 2011) on N 2 O emissions; and no effect on CO 2 emissions (Li et al, 2011). Lastly, Trabue and Kerr (2014); Kerr et al (2020), andTrabue et al (2022) reported no effect of feeding high dietary fiber diets on CO 2 , CH 4 , or N 2 O emissions. Therefore, within the production facility, diet composition differences have dramatic effects on N excretion and NH 3 emissions, but limited and inconsistent effects on GHG emissions.…”

“…However, feeding high fiber diets increases the partitioning of N excretion from urine to feces (Canh et al, 1997;Younes et al, 1997;Mroz et al, 2000;Zervas and Zijlstra, 2002a;Zervas and Zijlstra, 2002b;Jarret et al, 2011a;Jha and Leterme, 2012;Jha and Berrocoso, 2016), which has a positive effect on increasing the amount of N retained in the manure. In contrast to the increase in manure N concentrations resulting in increased N emissions observed in pigs fed high concentrations of dietary CP, manure-N emissions are generally reduced by feeding pigs elevated levels of dietary fiber (Canh et al, 1998a, Canh et al, 1998bMroz et al, 2000;Kerr et al, 2006;Le et al, 2008;Galassi et al, 2010;Jarret et al, 2011a;Trabue and Kerr, 2014;Philippe et al, 2015;Kerr et al, 2020;Trabue et al, 2022). The lower emissions of ammonia from manure from pigs fed high fiber diets is partially due to a shift in N excretion from the urea-N in the urine to the microbial-N in the feces (Canh et al, 1997;Zervas and Zijlstra, 2002a;Zervas and Zijlstra, 2002b), lower manure pH (Canh et al, 1998a;Canh et al, 1998b;van der Peet-Schwering et al, 1999;Kai et al, 2008;Ye et al, 2008;Trabue et al, 2022) and manure crusting (Trabue and Kerr, 2014;Kupper et al, 2020).…”

Influence of Manure as a Complex Mixture on Soil Sorption of Pharmaceuticals—Studies with Selected Chemical Components of Manure

“…Accordingly, it was the aim of this study to investigate for the first time the effect of selected pure chemicals, representing relevant constituents of manure [ 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ], on the soil sorption of PhACs. This was done by using urea and potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KH 2 PO 4 ) as major nutrient components, acetic acid and phenol as representatives of volatile organic compounds, and nonadecanoic acid (C:19) as a non-polar organic constituent of manure.…”

Understanding how management decisions impact sustainability in the swine industry

“…In aerobic conditions, manure will undergo mineralization in which microbes reduce the organic materials into inorganic matter (i.e., nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus) that are essential for plant nutrients. When manure is present in anaerobic conditions, fermentation will result in the breakdown of glucose (Kerr et al, 2020). The change of pH in the feces can cause CO2, methane, and ammonia to be produced (Dai et al, 2015).…”