The poultry industry is now operating under increased regulatory pressure following the introduction of the pathogen reduction and hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) rule in 1996. This new operation scheme has greatly increased the need for on-farm food safety risk management of foodborne bacteria, such as Salmonella. Information needed to make informed food safety risk management d...

Previous research has shown that treatment of poultry litter with alum is an effective management strategy to reduce phosphorus (P) solubility in litter thereby reducing potential P losses to surface runoff after surface applications. However, limited data are available evaluating alum-treated poultry litter (ATPL) environmental impact in cultivated systems and how its application will affect c...

Application of poultry litter (PL) to soil may lead to nitrogen (N) losses through ammonia (NH(3)) volatilization and to potential contamination of surface runoff with PL-derived phosphorus (P). Amending litter with acidified biochar may minimize these problems by decreasing litter pH and by retaining litter-derived P, respectively. This study evaluated the effect of acidified biochars from pin...

Chronic inhalation exposure to agricultural dust promotes the development of chronic respiratory diseases among poultry workers. Poultry dust is composed of dander, chicken feed, litter bedding and microbes. However, the microbial composition and abundance has not been fully elucidated. Genomic DNA was extracted from settled dust and personal inhalable dust collected while performing litter sam...

Title of Document: INVESTIGATING COMPOSTING AS A METHOD FOR REDUCING ESTROGENICTY IN POULTRY LITTER AND BIOSOLIDS Kirsten Marie Hammett, Master of Science, 2015 Directed by: Assistant Professor, Lance Yonkos Department of Environmental Science and Technology Biosolids and poultry litter contain the natural estrogens 17β-estradiol and estrone, which can be transported to receiving waters via run...

Disposal of fecally contaminated poultry litter by land application can deliver pathogens and fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) into receiving waters via runoff. While water quality is regulated by FIB enumeration, FIB testing provides inadequate information about contamination source and health risk. This microbial source tracking (MST) study compared the persistence of the Brevibacterium sp. str...

A field-scale plot study was conducted at Virginia Tech’s Prices Fork Research Farm, to evaluate the transport of nutrients in runoff from manure and fertilizer applied at P-based agronomic rates to cropland planted to corn. Simulated rainfall events representing 2to 10-year storms in southwest Virginia, occurring 1 and 2 days following manure and fertilizer application were used to generate ru...

The aim of this research was to evaluate the quality and photosynthetic metabolism of "uvaia" seedlings (Eugenia pyriformis Cambess.) on different substrates and water regimes. The seeds were sown in tubes of 50 x 190 mm in the following substrates: Sand (S), Latosol + Sand (L + S) (1:1), Latosol + Sand + Semi Decomposed Poultry Litter (L + S1 + PL) ( 1:1:0.5), Latosol + Sand + Semi Decomposed ...

Animal manure continues to represent a significantly large and problematic portion of the US agricultural waste generated yearly. Granular activated carbons made from pelletized poultry litter have been shown to adsorb various positively charged metal ions from laboratory-prepared solutions. The objective of this study was to develop a conceptual capital and operating cost estimate using the Su...