Characterising the volumes and chemical characteristics of dairy sheep effluent in New Zealand. Issue 1 (2nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Smith, L. C.; Longhurst, R. D.; Monaghan, R. M.; Bartlett, N.
• Is Part Of: New Zealand journal of agricultural research. Volume 61:Issue 1(2018)
• Page Start: 109
• Page End: 117
• Publication Date: 2018-01-02
• Subjects: Dairy sheep -- farm dairy effluent -- nitrogen -- phosphorus -- potassium -- E. coli; Agriculture -- Periodicals; Agriculture -- New Zealand -- Periodicals; Animal culture -- Periodicals; Animal culture -- New Zealand -- Periodicals; 630.99305
• DOI: 10.1080/00288233.2017.1397032
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0028-8233

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Dairy sheep produce an effluent stream from the milking parlour that is either applied directly to land via a sump and spray irrigator, or is stored in an effluent pond before application. In order to characterise this effluent stream, a monitoring programme was undertaken with effluent samples collected from two case study sheep milking farms over two lactation seasons (2014/2015 and 2015/2016), and a third over one lactation period (2015/2016). Typical effluent volumes generated ranged between 4 and 10 L ewe −1 day −1 for the 130–200-day lactation. The mean physical and chemical attributes of effluent samples generated by the milking parlours were: 0.54% dry matter (DM), 220 g nitrogen (N) m −3, 32 g phosphorus (P) m −3, 150 g potassium (K) m −3 and 22 g sulphur (S) m −3 . The mean nutrient concentrations of dairy sheep effluent are lower than values reported for dairy goat (P & S only) and dairy cow effluents (N, P, K and S).