A liquid manure spreader, also called a slurry spreader, is an agricultural implement designed to transport liquid manure (slurry or digestate) from storage and distribute it over fields. Equipped with a spreading tool at the rear, this implement enables the fertilization of arable land or grassland using slurry.
Liquid manure, sourced from slurry pits of livestock farms or biogas plants, is typically applied in the spring to fertilize arable land, fallow fields, or fields with catch crops. In the fall, after fields have been harvested, they are often re-fertilized using a liquid manure spreader, followed by the sowing of green manure crops. Additionally, manure spreaders are frequently used between grassland mowings to maintain soil fertility.
Farmers, particularly livestock farmers, often own a liquid manure tank because it is cost-effective due to its year-round use. [1] However, contractors are commonly hired to expedite fertilization over large areas. To optimize efficiency, contractors often use tank trailers to transport the slurry from the manure pit to the field, allowing the liquid manure spreader to remain on-site for continuous fertilization. For even greater efficiency, a large-capacity manure container can be placed at the edge of the field. This container acts as a buffer, facilitating seamless transfer between the transport trailer and the spreader.
Agricultural machinery is generally available in three formats: self-propelled, towed, or carried. Self-propelled machinery features its own engine for propulsion, while towed or carried equipment requires a tractor for movement. Liquid manure spreaders are typically available in self-propelled or towed versions, although umbilical slurry spreaders can be considered a carried type of liquid manure spreader.
Barge typically refers to a flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and marine water environments. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but on inland waterways, most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. The term barge has a rich history, and therefore there are many types of barges.
Self-propelled artillery is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mortar, and self-propelled rocket artillery. They are high-mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large field gun, howitzer, mortar, or some form of rocket/missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to agriculture:
A railroad car, railcar, railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck, also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is a vehicle used for the carrying of cargo or passengers on a rail transport network. Such cars, when coupled together and hauled by one or more locomotives, form a train. Alternatively, some passenger cars are self-propelled in which case they may be either single railcars or make up multiple units.
A feedlot or feed yard is a type of animal feeding operation (AFO) which is used in intensive animal farming, notably beef cattle, but also swine, horses, sheep, turkeys, chickens or ducks, prior to slaughter. Large beef feedlots are called concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) in the United States and intensive livestock operations (ILOs) or confined feeding operations (CFO) in Canada. They may contain thousands of animals in an array of pens.
Nutrient management is the science and practice directed to link soil, crop, weather, and hydrologic factors with cultural, irrigation, and soil and water conservation practices to achieve optimal nutrient use efficiency, crop yields, crop quality, and economic returns, while reducing off-site transport of nutrients (fertilizer) that may impact the environment. It involves matching a specific field soil, climate, and crop management conditions to rate, source, timing, and place of nutrient application.
A chemical toilet collects human excreta in a holding tank and uses chemicals to minimize odors. They do not require a connection to a water supply and are used in a variety of situations. These toilets are usually, but not always, self-contained and movable. A chemical toilet is structured around a relatively small tank, which requires frequent emptying. It is not connected to a hole in the ground, nor to a septic tank, nor is it plumbed into a municipal system leading to a sewage treatment plant. When the tank is emptied, the contents are usually pumped into a sanitary sewer or directly to a treatment plant.
Agricultural wastewater treatment is a farm management agenda for controlling pollution from confined animal operations and from surface runoff that may be contaminated by chemicals in fertilizer, pesticides, animal slurry, crop residues or irrigation water. Agricultural wastewater treatment is required for continuous confined animal operations like milk and egg production. It may be performed in plants using mechanized treatment units similar to those used for industrial wastewater. Where land is available for ponds, settling basins and facultative lagoons may have lower operational costs for seasonal use conditions from breeding or harvest cycles. Animal slurries are usually treated by containment in anaerobic lagoons before disposal by spray or trickle application to grassland. Constructed wetlands are sometimes used to facilitate treatment of animal wastes.
Plaggen soil or plaggic anthrosol is a type of soil created in parts of northwest Europe in the Middle Ages, as a result of so-called "plaggen" agriculture on marginal podzol soils.
A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. The combination of a semi-trailer and a tractor truck is called a semi-trailer truck.
A sprayer is a device used to spray a liquid, where sprayers are commonly used for projection of water, weed killers, crop performance materials, pest maintenance chemicals, as well as manufacturing and production line ingredients. In agriculture, a sprayer is a piece of equipment that is used to apply herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers on agricultural crops. Sprayers range in size from man-portable units to trailed sprayers that are connected to a tractor, to self-propelled units similar to tractors with boom mounts of 4–30 feet (1.2–9.1 m) up to 60–151 feet (18–46 m) in length depending on engineering design for tractor and land size.
Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pollution may come from a variety of sources, ranging from point source water pollution to more diffuse, landscape-level causes, also known as non-point source pollution and air pollution. Once in the environment these pollutants can have both direct effects in surrounding ecosystems, i.e. killing local wildlife or contaminating drinking water, and downstream effects such as dead zones caused by agricultural runoff is concentrated in large water bodies.
A vacuum truck, vacuum tanker, vactor truck, vactor, vac-con truck, vac-con is a tank truck that has a pump and a tank. The pump is designed to pneumatically suck liquids, sludges, slurries, or the like from a location into the tank of the truck. The objective is to enable transport of the liquid material via road to another location. Vacuum trucks transport the collected material to a treatment or disposal site, for example a sewage treatment plant.
Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are utilised by bacteria, fungi and other organisms in the soil. Higher organisms then feed on the fungi and bacteria in a chain of life that comprises the soil food web.
A slurry pit is a hole, a dam, or a circular concrete structure where farmers gather all animal waste and unusable organic matter, such as hay, and the run-off water from the washing of dairies, stables, and barns, in order to convert the slurry, over a lengthy period of time, into fertilizer that can be used to fertilize croplands. The decomposition of the slurry waste material produces noxious and poisonous gases that make a slurry pit potentially lethal for a person without a breathing apparatus.
Lite-Trac is a trading name of Holme Farm Supplies Ltd, a manufacturer of agricultural machinery registered in England and based in Peterborough. The Lite-Trac name comes from "lite tractor", due to the patented chassis design enabling the inherently very heavy machines manufactured by the company to have a light footprint for minimum soil compaction.
Convertible husbandry, also known as alternate husbandry or up-and-down husbandry, is a method of farming whereby strips of arable farmland were temporarily converted into grass pasture, known as leys. These remained under grass for up to 10 years before being ploughed under again, while some eventually became permanent pasturage. It was a process used during the 16th century through the 19th century by "which a higher proportion of land was used to support increasing numbers of livestock in many parts of England." Its adoption was an important component of the British Agricultural Revolution.
Liquid manure is a mixture of animal waste and organic matter used as an agricultural fertilizer, sometimes thinned with water. It can be aged in a slurry pit to concentrate it.
This glossary of agriculture is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in agriculture, its sub-disciplines, and related fields, including horticulture, animal husbandry, agribusiness, and agricultural policy. For other glossaries relevant to agricultural science, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of ecology, Glossary of environmental science, and Glossary of botanical terms.