MU Study Looks at Poultry Litter's Impact on Soybean Yields

Aug 07, 2024

By Julie Harker

A six-year study at the University of Missouri’s Graves-Chapple Extension and Education Center in northwestern Missouri looked at the impact of poultry litter on soybean crops.

“Poultry litter is increasingly being applied to row crops in northwest Missouri,” said MU Extension agronomy specialist Wayne Flanary, who conducted the research. “Manures such as litter are valuable because they add organic matter and nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium nutrients.”

Ten tons of poultry litter was applied to each plot in the spring of 2018. The site had topsoil removed in places that needed to be leveled out. The chicken litter was lightly incorporated with a disk because the site was sloped. There were four replications of litter and the control check plots that were untreated. In the spring of 2023, phosphorus fertilizer was applied across all plots.

An analysis of the poultry litter showed it contained 60 pounds of nitrogen, 50 pounds of phosphate and 27 pounds of potash per ton.

In 2023, yields tended to be higher in the treated plots, but there was no statistically significant difference. The site has a lot of variability because scalping of topsoil was not removed to an equal depth, Flanary said.

The results were divided into little to no topsoil removal and severely scalped. Yields were 55.5 bushels per acre on the litter site 51.6 bushels per acre on the litter scalped site. The untreated sites had yields of 49.1 and 35.3 bushels per acre.

“Manure is a good management strategy to increase crop yields, especially in eroded soils and terrace channel cuts,” Flanary said.

Graph

https://extension.missouri.edu/sites/default/files/legacy_media/wysiwyg/News/photos/20240715-poultry-litter.jpg
Six-year yields for plots treated with chicken litter and untreated plots.

Source : missouri.edu

Video: From Conventional to Regenerative: Will Groeneveld’s Journey Back to the Land

"You realize you've got a pretty finite number of years to do this. If you ever want to try something new, you better do it."

That mindset helped Will Groeneveld take a bold turn on his Alberta grain farm. A lifelong farmer, Will had never heard of regenerative agriculture until 2018, when he attended a seminar by Kevin Elmy that shifted his worldview. What began as curiosity quickly turned into a deep exploration of how biology—not just chemistry—shapes the health of our soils, crops and ecosystems.

In this video, Will candidly reflects on his family’s farming history, how the operation evolved from a traditional mixed farm to grain-only, and how the desire to improve the land pushed him to invite livestock back into the rotation—without owning a single cow.

Today, through creative partnerships and a commitment to the five principles of regenerative agriculture, Will is reintroducing diversity, building soil health and extending living roots in the ground for as much of the year as possible. Whether it’s through intercropping, zero tillage (which he’s practiced since the 1980s) or managing forage for visiting cattle, Will’s approach is a testament to continuous learning and a willingness to challenge old norms.

Will is a participant in the Regenerative Agriculture Lab (RAL), a social innovation process bringing together producers, researchers, retailers and others to co-create a resilient regenerative agriculture system in Alberta. His story highlights both the potential and humility required to farm with nature, not against it.