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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Livestock Bio-Systems » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #382081
Research Project: Sustainable Management and Byproduct Utilization of Manure Nutrients and Environmental Contaminants from Beef and Swine Production Facilities

Location: Livestock Bio-Systems

Title: Stockpiling versus composting: Effectiveness in reducing antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes in beef cattle manure

Author
item STALEY, ZACHERY - University Of Nebraska
item Woodbury, Bryan
item STROMER, BOBBI - Us Army Corp Of Engineers (USACE)
item SCHMIDT, AMY - University Of Nebraska
item SNOW, DANIEL - University Of Nebraska
item BARTELT-HUNT, SHANNON - University Of Nebraska
item WANG, BING - University Of Nebraska
item LI, XU - University Of Nebraska

Submitted to: Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/28/2021
Publication Date: 8/1/2021
Citation: Staley, Z.R., Woodbury, B.L., Stromer, B.S., Schmidt, A.M., Snow, D.D., Bartelt-Hunt, S.L., Wang, B., Li, X. 2021. Stockpiling versus composting: Effectiveness in reducing antibiotic- resistant bacteria and resistance genes in beef cattle manure. Applied and Environmental Microbiology. 87(16). Article e00750-21. https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.00750-21.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/AEM.00750-21

Interpretive Summary: Manure accumulates on pen surfaces during the production of beef. This manure is periodically collected from the pen surface and temporally stockpiled until it can be applied to crop land as a fertilizer. There has been concern that medications administered to the animals during production will accumulate in the manure and cause an increase stains of bacteria that are resistant to the medication. A study was conducted to determine how this management practice impacts the potential for increasing bacteria resistant to human medications. Results from this study suggest that (1) bulking agent can be an important source of genetic material associate with resistance when adding for composting; (2) during cold months the variability of the temperature profile in composting piles could result in poor reduction in the genetic material associate with resistance; (3) during warm months both stockpiling and composting can be effective in reducing the abundance of this genetic material.

Technical Abstract: Manure storage methods can affect the concentration and prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in cattle manure prior to land application. The objective of this study was to compare stockpiling and composting with respect to their effectiveness in reducing ARB and ARGs in beef cattle manure in a field-scale study. Field experiments were conducted in different seasons with different bulking agents for composting. For both the winter-spring cycle and the summer-fall cycle, ARB concentrations declined below the limit of quantification rapidly in both composting piles and stockpiles, however, ARB prevalence was significantly greater in the composting piles than in the stockpiles. This was likely due to the introduction of ARB from bulking agents. There was no significant change in ARG concentrations between initial and final concentrations for either manure storage treatments during the winter-spring cycle, but a significant reduction of ARGs erm(B) and tet(O) and tet(Q) over time was observed for both the composting pile and stockpile during the summer-fall cycle. Results from this study suggest that (i) bulking agent may be an important source of ARB and ARGs for composting; (ii) during cold months the heterogeneity of the temperature profile in composting piles could result in poor ARG reduction; and (iii) during warm months both stockpiling and composting can be effective in reducing ARG abundance.