Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #371270
Research Project: Design and Implementation of Monitoring and Modeling Methods to Evaluate Microbial Quality of Surface Water Sources Used for Irrigation

Location: Environmental Microbial & Food Safety Laboratory

Title: Manure consistency and weathering affect the removal of fecal indicator bacteria from grass-covered soil

Author
item STOCKER, MATTHEW - Orise Fellow
item HILL, ROBERT - University Of Maryland
item Pachepsky, Yakov

Submitted to: Science of the Total Environment
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/26/2020
Publication Date: 4/4/2020
Citation: Stocker, M., Hill, R., Pachepsky, Y.A. 2020. Manure consistency and weathering affect the removal of fecal indicator bacteria from grass-covered soil. Science of the Total Environment. 231:1-11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-020-04556-4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-020-04556-4

Interpretive Summary: Animal manures contain fecal indicator bacteria that are used as indicator organisms for the potential microbial pollution of irrigation and recreation water sources. The release of these organisms to runoff water may depend on manure consistency, i.e. percentage of solids, and on the duration of weathering occurring between rainfall events. The above dependencies have never been studied. We ran several experiments in which manures of liquid and solid consistencies were applied to boxes with grassed soil, and one week and two weeks durations of manure weathering between rainfall events were created. We found that the percentage of manure-borne E. coli and enterococci removed in the runoff in one hour was exponentially dependent on the weathering duration, and did not depend on the manure consistency. These results can be useful for professionals involved in developing guidance on manure application practices to prevent or mitigate microbiological impairment of irrigation and recreation water sources.

Technical Abstract: Animal manures contain fecal indicator bacteria that are used as indicator organisms for the potential microbial pollution of irrigation and recreation water sources. The release of these organisms to runoff water may depend on manure consistency, i.e. percentage of solids, and on the duration of weathering occurring between rainfall events. The above dependencies have never been studied. The objective of this work was to research these dependencies by measuring the removal of Escherichia coli and enterococci from liquid and solid dairy manure applied in grassed soil boxes. The percentage of manure-borne bacteria removed in runoff over one hour was determined after the initial rainfall immediately after the manure application and after rainfall that occurred one week and two weeks after the initial rainfall. The soil boxes were kept in the greenhouse between runoff events. The runoff delay was linearly related to the time between rainfalls. The percentage of manure borne E. coli and enterococci exponentially decreased with the increase of the weathering time between rainfalls. Every day of weathering decreased the percentage of the released E. coli and enterococci by about 1.2 and by about 1.5 times respectively, in both liquid and solid manure application boxes. This work may be used to improve the parameterization of models for bacteria removal with runoff in applications to developing guidance on manure application practices to prevent or mitigate microbiological impairment of irrigation and recreation water sources.