Prairie du Sac, Wisc.-ManureTech2007, billed as North America’s largest manure-only farm and educational show, is expected to draw 1,000 attendees to the USDA-Dairy Forage Research Center here this week (Aug. 21) as an indication of the rapidly growing interest in alternatives to the more expensive commercial fertilizer, according to one of the sponsors. Brandon Vogel, president of the Professional Nutrient Applicators Assn. of Wisconsin, told Green Markets that the show, which draws from three or four surrounding states and Canada, will see an increase of two or three hundred over last year in Michigan. Other sponsors include the University of Wisconsin Extension and the manure application industry. They’ll take their show to Ohio in 2008, and tentatively to Iowa in 2009. Vogel said his association applicators are pumping in the billions of gallons every year, while his company, which is only average size, handles up to 100 million gallons. “Our work has been steadily increasing the past five years,” he noted.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain