Student Research Assistant Dairy Nutrition OARDC

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Student Research AssistantDairy NutritionOARDC

• Rebecca Galioto
• Summer 2005

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OARDC

• The mission of The Ohio
• Agricultural Research And
• Development Center is to
• enhance the well-being of the
• people of Ohio, the nation
• and world through research
• on foods, agriculture, family
• and the environment.

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People Involved

• Dr. Bill Weiss
• Dr. Lynn Willett
• Donna Wyatt
• Diane Borger
• Tonya McKelvey

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Duties and Responsibilities

• Assist in the ammonia emissions research project
• Design and carry out side project to reduce
  ammonia emissions from manure after excretion

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Problem

• Livestock operations are the leading source of
  ammonia emitted into the atmosphere

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Background on Ammonia Emissions Research
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Problem

• Air and Water Quality
• Human Health
• Respiratory
• Cardiovascular
• Eyes
• Animal health effects

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Reducing Ammonia Emissions

• To provide information that will help reduce the
  impact of dairy production on the environment
  including the effects of different compositions
  of feed on manure excretion and ammonia emissions

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Absorption of Ammonia

• To reduce ammonia volatilization
• Reduce pH
• Use urease inhibitors
• Add Zeolite
• Dry the manure

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When Urine and Feces Mix
Urease
Urea CO(NH2)2


?
2 H20
NH3 CO2
Therefore taking the water out of the reaction
inhibits the formation of ammonia
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Zeolite Absorb moisture Adsorb gases Special
structure traps ammonia
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Sawdust and Zeolite
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Experimental Design
7 g feces 3 g urine
Slurry Set Up
Treatments 1 0.5 g sawdust 2 0.5 g
zeolite 3 0.5 g sawdust 0.5 g zeolite 4
Control
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Experimental Design
Sample Collection
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Ammonia Emissions
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Trapping Volatilized Ammonia

• Constant air flow
• Ammonia trapped in boric acid
• Boric acid solutions titrated to
• determine amount of
• volatilized ammonia
• 1 ml acid 1 mg NH3

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Nitrogen Determination
1. Digestion
2. Distillation
3. Titration
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Results
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Average Ammonia Emitted
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Ammonia Volatilization Reduction
Zeolite 9.83 Sawdust 6.22 Zeolite
Sawdust 18.11
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So

• Assuming 63.6kg of manure is excreted per cow per
  day
• The control treatment produced an average of 210
  g NH3
• Zeolite 189.6 g
• Sawdust 196.6 g
• Zeolite Sawdust 172.3 g

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Statistical Analysis
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NH3 as N
Time (hours)
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What I learned
Conducting research is time consuming and
sometimes repetitive It is exciting to see
results Basic knowledge about the dairy
industry How to design, carry out and analyze a
research project Technical knowledge associated
with nutrition analyses
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Any Questions?
Thank you for coming to my presentation