While conservatives like to whine about over-regulation, it's easy to appreciate the manure management advice the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is distributing to livestock farmers.
The Minnesota Farm Guide reports in Rapid snow melt poses challenges for livestock manure management:
As a winter of heavy snowfall and freezing rain gives way to warming temperatures, rapid melting and potential for flooding pose challenges for manure management among the more than 25,000 livestock farms in Minnesota. Farmers who spread solid manure during winter must ensure that it doesn’t run off with rapid snowmelt flowing to ditches, streams and other waters.
Manure-contaminated runoff not only threatens water quality, it reduces the value of manure as a crop nutrient. If possible, farmers should refrain from spreading manure during periods of rapid melt. This may be even more important in some areas this year because of frozen snow conditions. In January and February the snow was saturated by rain, and then froze. This prevents surface-applied manure from soaking in to the soil, and more susceptible to runoff.. . .
In short, keep your manure together.
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