Large scale hog farmers typically store their animal manure in large open air ponds called waste lagoons. They mix the liquid and sludge in the lagoons to fertilize their farmland. The process often poses problems for pork producers. But some farmers are using trees as a solution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richie Duchon has more:
Transcript
Large scale hog farmers typically store their animal manure in large open
air ponds called waste lagoons. They mix the liquid and sludge in the
lagoons to fertilize their farm land. The process often poses problems for
pork producers. But some farmers are using trees as a solution. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richie Duchon has more:
As hog farmers spray liquid manure on their land, they risk saturating the
soil with nutrients.
Environmental officials fear that these nutrients might be running off into
nearby lakes and streams, which can cause harmful algae blooms.
This is forcing farmers to spray the waste on more and more land.
Researchers are exploring other options for the waste.
The plan involves drying the waste lagoons and planting poplar trees on
top of them.
The trees would absorb many of the nutrients from the sludge. And they
hope this would reduce the amount of land needed to get rid of the
manure.
Frank Humenik is a researcher at North Carolina State University. He
says the sludge from the dried lagoons would stay in place while the
trees grow.
“The poplar trees restrict its movement, because they take up so much
moisture, and they also take up some of these nutrients, and give us a
harvestable wood product.”
Researchers are still running tests on water near the sites. And they think
the poplar trees will make the land reusable in about ten years.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Richie Duchon.