Assessing Use, Efficiency and Logistics of Phosphorous Products Derived From Animal Manures.

:  Incorporation of recycled manure based nutrients into tomorrow’s delivery systems faces many hurdles.  As new technologies to process animal manures are developed and implemented, the need to understand how they can be integrated into the modern nutrient supply system is vital to their success. A holistic approach to the development of technologies, handling systems, logistics of recycling and distribution needs to be understood and incorporated into tomorrow’s farming systems.  These systems need to be successful from many perspectives including technological, environmental, nutrient use efficiency and economic viability in order to be sustainable. A review of these hurdles for products containing significant amounts of Phosphate will be discussed. Hurdles include: concentration of phosphate into materials that are both agronomically effective, logistically sustainable and have the physical requirements necessary for withstand today’s material nutrient handling systems. Products will need to be integrated into future large scale (yet regional) fertilizer supply and delivery systems to succeed. An assessment of the requirements to meet these needs will be discussed. These include: chemical makeup, formulation challenges, nutrient use efficiency, handling characteristics, regulatory constraints and delivery systems. There are opportunities to develop unique products that can be both economically sustainable and also deliver value to end users if we understand what characteristics need to be met to deliver value to the generator, technology provider, supply chain and nutrient users.