Nitrogen Availability

Nitrogen is one of the hardest nutrients for a farm to account for. Nitrogen in most forms is very volatile and sensitive to environmental/climate changes. The nitrogen in manure is in the form of ammonia and will volatilize if not incorporated into the soil. Most farms try to avoid this loss of nitrogen by incorporating the manure into the soil by plowing. Even if they plow the manure in the same day it was spread, only 80% of the nitrogen will be available to that year's crop.

The other form of nitrogen in manure is organic nitrogen. Organic nitrogen needs to be broken down by microbial life within the soil to become available to that year's crop. Approximately 35% of organic nitrogen is available in the first year.

Manure sample analysis measures both ammonia nitrogen and organic nitrogen. With this a farmer can determine how much nitrogen they are supplying the crop with the manure applications.