The environmental challenge of the mechanical performance of spreaders

Abstract

New European standards were defined in the year 2003, regarding the spreading distribution for solid and liquid manure spreaders. The requirement levels of these standards were set up by considering the actual performance of this equipment. On the hand, no agronomic was carried out for these requirements and it is currently impossible to state whether they are insufficient or excessive from an environmental point of view. By using fertilization software programs we could establish the fertilization balance of a field for an application by three different spreaders qualified as "bad", "medium" and "good". These simulations show that the spreading heterogeneity does not influence automatically the nitrate lixiviation. Finally, the present requirements of the European standards can be stated as "reasonable" but are insufficient when using highly concentrated manures like some composts or broiler manures.