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 often applied to land to return organic matter and nutrients to the soil. Manure processing methods, such as solid-liquid-separation and composting, have grown in popularity to improve transport logistics and farm nutrient distribution. However, there is a lack of information on the nutrient availability of these treated manure end products. This project aims to evaluate the impacts of manure processing strategies on nitrogen availability and explore how the results can improve current nutrient management planning strategies. UW–Platteville’s Pioneer Farm will be used as a case study to investigate available nitrogen in soil that was treated with different types of processed manure products. Available nitrogen will also be assessed from separated manure solids and composted manure from regional dairy livestock facilities.
Publication in Bioresource Technology Reports – July 2022