More intensive production of hogs and cattle in Quebec during the past decade has benefited local economies, but led to over-fertilization of agricultural soils and eutrophication of waterways. Provincial ministries responded to this issue by developing regulations to control manure applications. The objective of this thesis was to determine the environmental risk associated with applying farm manure in the late fall. Spreading manure in fall after harvesting corn was a common practice for many agricultural producers in Quebec, but this period is now viewed as very risky, having more negative environmental consequences than other manure application periods. This two-year study used common diagnostic tools to compare the fertilization efficiency of solid dairy farm manure (DFM) spread in early fall, late fall and spring on a heavy clay soil used for corn production. In the first year, when DFM was the only nutrient source, there was no difference in corn yield that could be attributed to the manure application period. In the second year, each DFM plot was split and six levels of inorganic fertilizer (from 55 to 240 kg N ha-1) were applied ("Strip Split Plot") after planting. Corn tissue analysis (chlorophyll content, leaf N content at silking, cornstalk NO3 concentration) indicated that more residual N was supplied from late fall manure application than other manure application periods. Monitoring of soil NO3-N concentrations indicated that most of the NO3-N migration through the soil profile occurred after the early fall manure application. Late fall manure application appears to be the most efficient at supplying N for corn production, without deleterious environmental impacts, when DFM is applied to a heavy clay soil.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.99326 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Cantin, Jean. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Natural Resource Sciences.) |
| Rights | © Jean Cantin, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002571628, proquestno: AAIMR28471, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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