PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. – Does injecting manure into soil cost more than applying with a dribble bar?
Which method leaves more nitrogen in the soil?
And is it cheaper to buy equipment or hire a contractor?
The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute has a $25 computer spreadsheet that can help hog farmers choose the most economical and beneficial way to apply manure to their land.
Mark Michie, project leader at PAMI, developed the spreadsheet software two years ago to help the hog industry make informed choices about manure spreading.
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“This just makes it relatively easy to plug in many different factors,” explained Michie.
It takes an hour to type information into the program, which runs on Microsoft Excel or Quattro Pro. Farmers write in details about their hog operation, land available for spreading, crops grown on that land, manure storage facilities and soil and manure test results.
The spreadsheet includes labor, interest rates, fuel prices, and road and field speeds in the calculations, in either metric or imperial measurements. It compares the value of the manure to commercial fertilizers.
It graphs the net costs of each application method and compares the cost of owning equipment to the cost of using a contractor.
The spreadsheet is available at provincial agricultural offices and from PAMI.
