Manure

There have been a few phone calls from farmers calling about needing to get their fertilizer license in order to receive or spread poultry litter. This has been the law in Ohio for several years since Senate Bill 1 was passed. Any farmer handling, receiving, or applying poultry litter (or any other manure) from a permitted farm in Ohio must have either a fertilizer license or a Certified Livestock Manager certificate or be a Certified Crop Advisor. Most poultry farms in Ohio are permitted so nearly all the poultry litter available to farmers is from permitted farms.

Wheat fields will begin to firm up in Ohio and the topdressing with nitrogen fertilizer will soon start. There is usually a window of time, typically around the last week of March or the first week of April, when wheat fields are firm enough to support manure application equipment. By this date, wheat fields have broken dormancy and are actively pulling moisture and nutrients from the soil. With the limited fall and winter opportunities to apply manure to fields, many livestock farms have more manure than usual for this time of year.