05/21/1993

Forages and Waste Management Highlights of Field Day

WINFIELD, Ala. - Achieving an ecological balance with the earth requires a give-and-take relationship with the land. That balance was the focus of a research field day held recently at the Upper Coastal Plain Substation in Winfield.

The Forage and Waste Management Field Day featured results of studies underway at the Substation, an outlying research unit of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station (AAES) at Auburn University.

David Teem, AAES assistant director, welcomed the more than 50 people who attended the event, noting that both forages and waste are important issues for all Alabamians. "These issues are critical not just to producers of agricultural commodities in Alabama, but to every citizen of the state who has to eat and also deal with waste disposal," he said.

According to Teem, Alabama has abundant forage resources and forage research being conducted through the AAES is some of the best in the nation. As that research helps expand forage use and productivity, other AAES studies are exploring new options for handling another abundant resource -- solid waste.

"We've been looking at waste management for a long time, but in the past the focus has been on livestock waste. Now we are looking at a different kind of animal waste, the kind generated by people."

"We have gone from looking for ways to get rid of waste to looking at it as a resource," noted Charles Mitchell, assistant professor of agronomy and soils at Auburn who provided a historical view on waste management research. "Researchers are now looking at by-products of agriculture and industry, such as broiler litter and wood ash, as resources for us to use," added Mitchell.

"We have the potential to recycle about 90 percent of what goes into our landfills," Mitchell continued. He explained that inorganic items, such as glass and aluminum, can be recycled, while organic items can be recycled or used for other purposes.

Because many waste materials are derived from nature, they can be returned to the land. James Edwards, affiliate professor of agronomy and soils at Auburn and a soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is looking for ways organic wastes can benefit agriculture. This effort also could benefit society by increasing crop production and also by helping reduce waste disposal problems.

According to Edwards, the Environmental Protection Agency has mandated substantial reductions in the amount of waste going into landfills. "Paper and yard waste, organic materials that will decompose, make up about 62 percent of the waste now going into landfills," Edwards said. "By finding uses for these wastes, we could increase the life of landfills and perhaps improve the chemical and physical properties of our soil. These products may also help reduce the amount of nitrogen leaching in the soil and reduce chemical use."

Preliminary results of Edwards' studies suggest that some of these materials will enhance the structure and productivity of soils, and thus be beneficial to agriculture.

Studies at other locations in Alabama with cotton have shown that ground newspaper, combined with broiler litter as a source of nitrogen, can improve crop productivity. Harold Walker, also professor of agronomy and soils at Auburn, noted that the newspaper treatments also seem to be providing some herbicidal activity on certain types of grass weeds.

Randall Rawls, assistant superintendent at the Substation, told the gathering that studies at the Upper Coastal Plain Substation are looking at cotton gin waste, wood chips, grass clippings and shredded newspaper. These studies are focusing on the use of these materials with corn and switchgrass, a prolific forage that has potential as a new Alabama forage. However, Rawls noted that this research is only in its second year and results are not yet available.

While waste research is looking at ways to augment the land, other studies are exploring the best ways to harvest productivity from that resource. David Bransby, professor of agronomy and soils at Auburn, has been studying ways to increase the value of fescue, a cool-season forage that is used extensively as a livestock forage in Alabama.

Fescue is high in nutrient value, but it also is often infected with a fungus that can be toxic to livestock, resulting in reduced gains and productivity. Various noninfected varieties have been developed; however, these varieties are expensive and sometimes difficult to establish. Bransby's research has focused on managing infected fescue to obtain top performance from the forage and the animals grazing it.

His studies have shown that treating animals with ivermectin deworming medication can increase the average daily weight gain of steers grazing infected fescue. "We are getting 80- to 90-pound increases in weights of animals grazing infected fescue just by deworming with ivermectin," said Bransby. He noted that these increased gains cannot be solely attributed to the positive effects of deworming, and the ivermetic appears to help suppress the toxicity. Studies on using ivermectin with cows and calves are underway at the Substation.

"This may be quite a breakthrough in the management of fescue toxicosis," noted Bransby.

Mitchell also reviewed fertility research underway with fescue. "Fertility is a big problem with the establishment of fescue," noted Mitchell. "Preliminary results suggest that controlling soil pH is vital to effective fescue establishment."

Another forage discussed during the Field Day was sericea lespedeza, a common legume in Alabama. Jorge Mosjidis, associate professor of agronomy and soils, discussed the sericea breeding program underway at Auburn that is producing new cultivars for Alabama. He noted that sericea may be a good option for some livestock producers, especially if new cultivars can provide hardy, palatable plants. Several new cultivars look promising, he added.

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News from:

Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu
Contact Katie Jackson, 334-844-5886 or smithcl@auburn.edu

May 21, 1993