On dairy farms, nitrogen is required to grow the crops that supply feed protein to maintain animals, and much of this nitrogen is recycled back to the crops through manure application. This recycling forms a closed system, but there are many leaks to the environment including ammonia emission from manure sources, nitrous oxide emission from soil and manure, and runoff and leaching of dissolved nitrogen to surface and ground waters. In addition, secondary losses of nitrogen-containing compounds occur during the production of resources used on the farm including fuel, electricity, machinery, fertilizer, and purchased feed or animals. A new component was incorporated in the Integrated Farm System Model that sums these primary and secondary sources to give the total reactive nitrogen loss from the production system per unit of milk produced. This new tool is used to evaluate and compare the effects of alternative production strategies on this reactive nitrogen footprint of milk production.

Predicting the reactive nitrogen footprint of milk production systems

244th National Meeting (2012)

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