Sanford is an assistant professor in the School of Agriculture at UW–Platteville. His research interest is in agriculture wastewater management including management of farmstead and edge of field runoff, nutrient management, precision manure application, water recovery and recycling, pathogen inactivation and transport, and emerging agricultural contaminates such as PFAS. His position is funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub.
Manure is a vital resource in dairy systems, as it contains organic matter and essential nutrients that can be returned to crop production systems. However from a nutrient management perspective, manure is very challenging, as manure samples often do not represent the actual nutrient value of each tanker, which can lead to over or under application of nutrients. Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) is a technology that can be used to sense manure nutrients in real time during application, potentially improving manure nutrient application and overall nutrient use efficiency on farms.
This award provides a third year of trials to ongoing studies on this topic due to drought conditions in 2023. This award also allows the purchase of a John Deere HarvestLab 3000, with manure consistent and forage constituent sensing.