ABSTRACT:
Most fecal wastes produced by the poultry industry in Kentucky will be applied to agricultural land. Grass filter strips have been documented to protect public waterways from soil erosion. We used a rain simulator to investigate their potential to trap fecal bacteria in surface runoff from poultry manure-amended cropland. We incorporated 16.5 Mg ha−1 of poultry manure into each of four chisel-tilled plots and measured the trapping efficiency of 4.5 and 9.0 m grass filters for runoff sediment and fecal indicator bacteria. Sediment concentrations were reduced an average of 96% by 4.5 m filter strips and 98% by 9.0 m filter strips. Average fecal coliform trapping efficiency was 75% in 4.5 m filter strips and 91% in 9.0 m filter strips. Average fecal streptococci trapping efficiency was 68% in 4.5 m filter strips and 74% in 9.0 m filter strips. Flow-weighted fecal coliform concentrations in filter strip runoff were still 1000 times higher than the standard for primary contact water used in Kentucky (200 fecal colifbrms per 100 mL). Grass filter strips long enough to minimize sediment loss will trap most of the fecal bacteria in surface runoff but will not reduce fecal contamination of runoff to sufficiently meet existing water quality standards.
Footnotes
The authors thank Murali Murugesan for his technical assistance during laboratory assays and C. Elizabeth Madison for her expert assistance during rain simulations. The work on which this report is based was partly supported by the U.S. Department of the Interior, under the provisions of Public Law 101-397, as Kentucky Water Resources Institute, Research Report No. 188. Additional support was provided by Kentucky State Senate Bill 271. The investigation in the paper is a contribution from the Departments of Agronomy and Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, University of Kentucky in connection with a project of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station and is published with the approval of the director
- Copyright 1998 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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