NRCS and Dairy Commission Helping Nutrient Transport Research

Researchers at WSU recently got grant money from the NRCS and Washington State Dairy Commission for their work in managing nutrients on dairy farms.

Livestock Nutrient Management Specialist Joe Harrison said they have been adapting an existing device that captures phosphorus from swine manure so that it can work on dairies.

“The idea is to extract phosphorus on a dairy farm. They have excess phosphorus which they don’t need as a fertilizer. And then be able to transport that off farm and relocate it to areas that do need phosphorus.”

The process would produce fertilizer that Harrison noted would be easy to handle and not be susceptible to water issues and be of good quality.

Harrison said there are other benefits to this process for dairies as well.

“Creating a balance on the farm so there’s not an excess on farm environmentally. It will be interesting to see how the markets play out in terms of being able to actually market this material and how much money might come back to a dairy farm to actually provide an income stream for them.”

Phosphorus is also a finite resource and this project could help end the reliance on foreign phosphorus.

Harrison says they will be doing all of their work in commercial dairies in the spring but in the coming months they will be reaching out to dairies to get them involved.

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