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World events have increased the costs of chemical fertilizers significantly. Now is the time to begin securing a source of poultry litter for fertilizer later this growing season. Poultry litter is the combination of poultry manure and wood shavings used for bedding in commercial poultry houses. It is an excellent fertilizer and is much less expensive than equivalent quantities of chemical fertilizer nutrients. Some areas of the Virginia with high concentrations of poultry production have more litter than their farm fields can effectively utilize. Virginia’s poultry litter transport incentive program is designed to facilitate the efficient use of poultry litter as a crop nutrient source in areas that can most benefit from those nutrients and that are outside of the main poultry-producing counties.
The goal is to encourage the development of self-sustaining poultry litter markets so poultry litter is fully utilized and to avoid overloading some areas with nutrients.
Poultry litter end users in Rockbridge ‒ people who wish to have poultry litter applied to their fields as fertilizer ‒ who source their litter from either Rockingham or Page Counties are eligible for a $17.50 per ton incentive payment to encourage the transport of poultry litter from these counties to areas with fewer poultry operations and with soils that can fully utilize all the plant nutrients contained in litter.
Poultry litter end users that wish to apply for these funds must have a nutrient management plan prepared by a nutrient management planner certified by DCR for all fields scheduled to receive poultry litter. The end-user agrees to fully implement their nutrient management plan (NMP) and to participate in NMP verification. Fields eligible for payment must have a Virginia Tech soil test phosphorus reading (i.e., Virginia Tech soil test reading P pounds/acre, Mehlich I) no greater than 324 ppm. If someone has already applied poultry litter to their fields this year, they can still apply to the program and be eligible. All payments are based on documentation and are reimbursements for costs incurred.
Complete information on how to be eligible for poultry litter transfer incentive funds is available online at https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/ where in the ‘search DCR’ box in the upper right-hand corner, type ‘poultry litter transfer incentive program’. Alternatively, people can learn the details by calling DCR’s Staunton regional office at (540) 332-9228.
Poultry litter can be very difficult to access in the spring because of very high demand for its use on corn and soybean fields. However, research has shown the nutrients in poultry litter can be effectively utilized by pasture and hay meadows in the last half of the growing season extending into the late autumn. The root systems of these fields remain active past the first frosts of October. Fall applications of poultry litter have been show to enhance root development and enhance soil health in pastures.
Now is the time to begin securing a source of poultry litter to improve soil health later this growing season. For more information on improving the soil health of your farm, contact, me, Tom Stanley, through the Rockbridge Extension office at (540) 463-4734 or by email, [email protected].
