MSU Extension Michigan Transition to Organic Partnership Program

Hi, all. Welcome to the Nutrient Management for Organic Farms webinar. We're glad to have you all here. This is the Top Educator webinar series. And today, we're really lucky to have James DeDecker from MSU Extension, the Upper Peninsula Research and Education Center. Morgan Anderson, she is the Produce Safety Tech, working in West Michigan under the Ottawa Conservation District. And Paul Buzzard is a MAEAP Tech with Washtenaw County Conservation District. Michigan State University Extension programs are open to all without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, gender or gender identity, religion, age, height, weight, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital status, family status, or veteran status. Very important. So what is the Transition to Organic Partnership Program? So this is a USDA nationally funded program to connect farmers who want to certify organic, want to transition to organic practices or start a new organic farm with farmers experienced in farming organically and the process of certification. And this happens through mentorship, through technical assistance, just answering people's questions about organic farming, through learning events like this webinar today for educators, other events for farmers, including field days, conference sessions, etc. And then also just creating community around organic farming, sustainable farming practices. You can use the QR code there to go directly to the Transition to Organic Partnership Program here in Michigan. A couple of our events coming up. October is a really busy month for us. And so we are looking at two events this Sunday, which I've highlighted on the left and right side of the screen. There's a screening of Farming While Black, a really wonderful movie about the soul fire farm that Leah Penniman started, and a farmer panel with four farmers from Michigan, and then a really experienced facilitator who's been working with farmers of color for many years. um so that's happening here in east lansing and then if you're on the southeast side of the state we've got an old city acres farm and food hub tour in ypsilanti um folks might be familiar with alex ball uh he was one of the podcasters with uh oh goodness i'm forgetting the name of that podcast. The No-Till Farming Podcast. It might be Market Farming Podcast. So I'm sure that'll be a great event. And there's a bus going from Detroit if folks want to join in that. We've also got these two webinar series, three webinars for farmers and everyone, educators, welcome. Three webinars for educators. Two of them are on this nutrient management topic that we'll be talking about today, and one on organic pesticide management. The mentorship program connects those farmers that want to transition to organic with an experienced organic farmer for 40 hours, and both sides are compensated for their time. The mentors are paid $3,000, so their experience is being recognized. And then the mentees are paid $500 to attend an educational event. And we've just seen really positive results, both for the organic certification, but for confidence levels, for trying out new practices. This has been really a positive program. So before we go into Paul's talk, I'm going to go ahead and share the results. So we've got mostly educators and ag professionals, a couple of farmers and future farmers in there as well, and a processor. Most folks are organic curious. Some have some experience or have even worked on an organic farm. Some are transitioning. And we've got at least a few folks who are certified organic or have an alternative certification. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Paul. Thanks so much. Hey, thanks, Katie. Can everybody hear me? Oh, excellent. Thank you. Again, my name is Paul Buzzard. I'm the MAEAP Tech at Washtenaw County Conservation District. And we'll talk a little bit today about the MAEAP program and also how it applies, how through it you can reduce risks to waterways from compost organic amendments which will apply to uh most of you and next slide please okay meep is kind of a i don't know how many of you are familiar with MAEAP but it's a kind of a clunky acronym it's the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program or just MAEAP it's really it's pretty innovative, it's proactive it's voluntary, it's confidential. Farmers of all sizes and commodities and I work with, you know, dairy farms with herds of forty cattle to backyard duck operations that sell a couple dozen duck eggs. So it's row crops, orchards, some organic farms, everything in between, and helps them prevent or minimize pollution risks and get recognized for, get a great MEEP sign in their front yard. Next slide, please. Just a bit about MEEP history, it was started back in 98 through MDARD and farmers and ag groups like pork producers, corn growers, dairy council and the like, together with MDARD, state and federal agencies, Ducks Unlimited, conservation groups, and the real idea was to reduce producers' environmental legal risks, get them in compliance with Michigan Right to Farm, as well as the GAMPS, the Generally Accepted Agriculture Management Program. Get them in line with those legal risks. And the first verifications were given out back in 2003. Next slide, please. now MAEAP is it's called a four system three phase program uh three phases are first education um which you can get by attending a field day or now actually a recent change to MAEAP you can get that education phase just by like a visit from me or another MAEAP tech and walk around the farm uh with the producer that counts as the uh the education uh phase then phase two um again with myself another meat tech walk around the farm um and you know learn about the history of the farm what the plans are um and how things are stored how things are how things are running there basically to see what kind of risks need to be fixed or addressed um and finally the third party verification the the verifier you know those verifiers for southeast michigan southwest different areas have their own verifiers they come and basically do what would do what i did with the farmer we walk around again and see what see if the risks have been addressed um and if so then they get their sign right there and they are and they're verified and this this these phases apply to uh to four systems you see at the bottom there there's the farm set system, which I'll get into a little more detail next slide. And there's also the cropping system, the livestock, and most recently this FWH, this Forest Wetland Habitat, is sort of a recent or more recent addition to MAEAP, because it was understood that a lot of farms have woodlots, maybe some wetland areas that they can't farm. They're also pretty valuable habitats that can be addressed um and farmers can get recognized if they you know are maintaining these as as a you know nice areas of habitat next slide please okay so what does what does need to do it here is sort of sort of an idealized farm there at the at the left there um with you know a dairy operation um fertilizer pesticide storage the house. So first thing I would do, you know, if I get to this farm, I would maybe start at the farmstead, the house. And if the farmer does not have, you know, water tests up to date, meat can provide free nitrate testing, free E. coli testing for the well. If there's an unused well that's just sitting there and unused, probably unsealed, meat can provide funding to get that well properly sealed um which was a real focus for me in the beginning was getting these a lot of unsealed wells getting them closed up properly um also we we look at the farmstead and make sure that the the septic system has been properly uh you know properly drained drained or checked in the last three five years um and also distance from the well of of fuel storage fuel tanks for leisure storage and make sure those are far enough away from the well. And also, you know, it covers things like recycling, if trash is being burned, if the ashes are being disposed of properly. All those kind of things kind of go under the farmstead system. For livestock, like this dairy operation, a primary concern is manure storage, which also kind of i'll get into later compost storage um sort of falls under that is the mineral stored you know on an impermeable pad is it you know is it far enough away from from open water um and in the case of this like this this example here with the dairy barn right there um we want to see see hopefully that this dairy barn has a gutter on the side that's going directly into the feedlot so the water is not you know we want to keep clean water clean we say so you want to if there's not a gutter um the water is going directly from the barn into the feedlot we can provide some meep can provide cost share and get a gutter on that barn and keep that clean water clean um which is great to see um also to look at silage storage um actually a lot of farmers are getting away from from from uh you know silos it's mostly in in bags or or in bunkers make sure that silent storage is properly covered and leachate is not too much from there. I should back up a little bit. For farmstead also, we want to look at the fertilizer and pesticide storage. Is it on impermeable? Here it looks like it's in a proper self-contained building, so it's probably in pretty good shape there. And the fuel storage, make sure that's in order with a nice, you know, properly used fuel tank. Sometimes farmers use underground tanks above ground, which can be a problem. I've got a farmer using an LP tank as a diesel tank, which is not verifiable. So you'll have to change that if he wants to get verified. And then, so that's farmstead, then livestock. And then for cropping, really start at the soil test and make sure the farmers are not up on their soil tests, get their soils tested, see especially where their phosphorus levels are, and see if they're applying manure, get their manure tested potentially, see between the manure and fertilizer if they're adding more phosphorus than the crops are taking off. So we make a nutrient report and see how much inputs are going into the fields and what's being taken off with the crops and if it's too much being added uh we can recommend to uh to lower or even in some cases they'll have to stop uh manure spreading if the fields are over 150 parts per million manure or 300 acres 300 pounds per acre um they'll have to stop manure spreading to get in compliance with the right to farm act um and then if this is not on but if there is a you know a wood lodge or a wetland on site we'll check that mostly in most cases that the problem with those are almost always invasives invasives are um you know a big concern we'll work with farmers to to uh how to tackle invasive removal um if there are any erosion concerns we can go over those with the farmers and help them address any erosion concerns um yeah next slide please and here is a kind of bit about what this looks like um like in the top right you've got these these actually it's great um this is what i'd love to see a few things like this nice those are nice double walled properly labeled even got the uh the crash barriers next them and importantly it's on a nice impermeable um concrete concrete pad there um both the tanks and also where the where the fueling happens is on that concrete pad which we'd love we love to see those would be great um below that looks like it's a mineral storage great mineral storage facility with with concrete walls probably a concrete floor and roof um bottom left um if cattle have access or the livestock have access to waterways um we can help we can provide you know some fencing to to avoid that um so they don't tear up the waterways and create erosion concerns and the top left there was probably there was probably some erosion concerns um along the road there that's been taken care of with some uh rock riprap um And again, a great benefit of MEEP is these problems, they're identified and it can be addressed many times through cost share through the MEEP program. And I should have said back to the last slide, don't have to go there, but I talked about the soil samples in the field. If the farmer's not up on the soil samples, MEEP can provide those soil samples for farmers. Next slide, please. um okay here is and there here's the verification going through again like sitting down with myself and with the producer and the verifier going through basically the questions that i went through with the farmer and checking to see that everything is okay if it is um they get that great sign you see in the right which is really high quality great great signs um next slide please okay just some of the benefits of meep um actually it's confidential voluntary farmers go at the wrong pace um you won't get you know any fines or penalties as long as you report it and do your best to clean it up um get you in compliance right to farm and get your p level and your posture levels understood and know if you you can continue applying manure and he gets you discounts through Farm Bureau membership and insurance and with the corn growers and the like. Next slide, please. And again, you get that great sign. The cost share I mentioned, you get, you know, water is full sampled, spill kits, and it gets you a peace of mind. It shows your neighbors that you're doing your part. Okay, next slide. and now here is kind of a bit more what may be um more germane to this talk um how to reduce risks from compost and organic amendments to the waterways and these are coming straight from like from the from the assessment um as for compost storage again it's kind of like manure storage you want to keep the clean water diverted away you don't you want to have it a compost pile under under a roof with with you know water coming off the roof um you don't want to get gutters on those or you want to cover the compost make sure it's not getting any water in there and ideally it's on an impermeable surface on concrete a really hard compact clay and with a barrier with you know a concrete or wooden barrier to reduce any leach or any loss to the environment If it is on a permeable barrier, permeable soil where there's a partial barrier, a nice vegetated buffer around the compost. And from the well, you want to have it be at least 150 feet from private wells or 800 feet from public wells, like in a dairy farm or if you have employees. And those can be greatly reduced to like 50 feet or 75 feet. those can be those distances can be greatly reduced if you've got the barriers you've got if it's properly covered and you're taking steps to uh to help reduce uh any risks if you have temporary stacks those should be only kept for a year on that site they should be moved every year um and again and those should be 150 feet from non-farm houses and service water and uh and again those um and the distances from the wells again 75 feet for public and 50 feet for a private well and for compost application um again you should have i think organic we love working with organic farms they usually have good uh soil test records your soil tests probably are up to up to speed or up to up to date um if not we can maybe get those tested for you and also we can test the compost if you don't have the compost tested so you know you know you know how much you're putting on on your crops and that together with how much crops taking off make sure that you're uh you're below that 150 parts per million uh p levels which i think we talked about more in depth next talk um and if you're applying compost especially minerva-based compost you want to make sure you're up keeping 150 feet away from open water um if you're getting closer than you want to be sure to incorporate that compost within uh 48 hours or if a rain's coming even sooner get that compost incorporated um and or have a nice vegetable buffer between them and with that i think i'm getting close uh next slide please sorry that's my dog um and finally for fertilizer storage. I'm sorry, it's my dog. Thank you, Kim. Organic fertilizer can be on an impermeable surface. Again, those want to be far from wells, far from source water, being stucked annually and not next to fuel products. And you want it to be in appropriate containers. And again, this mostly deals with farms with a big, huge, you know, liquid nitrogen but still can apply to if you have a big 100-gallon tank of compost tea or something, it can also apply. And with that, I think I am out of time. And go ahead and don't worry about that. And I will turn it over to the next speaker and take questions later. Thank you. So much, Paul. That was fantastic. Now we're going to turn it over to Dr. James Dedecker, who's going to talk about managing phosphorus and salts in compost -amended soils. Go ahead, James. Thanks, Katie. Afternoon, everybody. As Katie said, we're going to be talking about phosphorus and salts in compost amended soils specifically, but also touch a little bit on other types of organic amendments and fertilizers. I'm based at the Upper Peninsula Research and Extension Center in Chatham. We have our North Farm, which is a certified organic operation. So we've dealt with these issues firsthand here at our facility and I want to share some of what we've learned. Next slide, please. So obviously, compost is a huge asset in organic farming operations. It provides lots of benefits in terms of adding organic matter. That's going to improve soil structure, aeration, water, nutrient holding capacity. It is a source of nutrients itself, albeit usually pretty low concentrations, but nice slow release source potentially of NPK and micronutrients. And also that organic matter, those nutrients and all the benefits that they bring are going to enhance microbial activity and soil health overall. The risks that we're going to focus on today relate to the fact that over-application of compost or organic fertilizer amendments generally can lead to the buildup of excessive phosphorus and soluble salts in your soil. That creates an unhealthy, quote -unquote unhealthy soil environment. We'll dig into what the specific risks are, and also environmental risks off-site from your farm that are important to understand as well. Next slide, please. So where does phosphorus come from? On an organic farm, compost and organic fertilizers contain varying levels of phosphorus, and they really depend on, you know, what those sources are and how they're processed. In the case of compost, that's the feedstocks that are used to create that compost. Higher phosphorus materials include especially animal manures and raw manure. Chicken manure is one of the highest phosphorus sources among the manures that are there, but also amendments like bone meal, fish meal. Some municipal compost, I think particularly if they contain a lot of food waste, can sometimes have higher phosphorus levels. It's important to understand that phosphorus is not really significantly reduced in the composting process. So whether it's in composting or once that amendment gets into the soil, phosphorus is pretty recalcitrant. It does not leach easily out of soil like nitrogen that usually moves with the soil or is taken up and removed with crop biomass itself. So if you're adding a lot of phosphorus, it's going to tend to accumulate over time if you're not matching that with crop removal. Next slide, please. looking at some sources of phosphorus so at the top we have a list of mostly synthetic fertilizers although you know something like potassium sulfate would be an example of a mined fertilizer that could be allowed in organic operation depending on how it's sourced and processed and at the bottom you have some examples of organic manures and compost products and so a couple things to point out, when we are managing soil fertility from an organic approach, you know, generally we're talking about materials that are lower nutrient concentrations overall. So what does that lead us to do? Well, if we're trying to meet all the nutrient needs of our crops, particularly for nitrogen, we tend to have to apply a lot of these materials. And as a result, sometimes we're applying excessive phosphorus, especially in the cases of something, say, like poultry manure, you can see second in the bottom category there under maneuvers, you know, has a higher P concentration than N concentration. So if you're shooting to meet your nitrogen needs, which is often the case, most limiting nutrient, then you're going to be overblown on phosphorus in many cases. Now, the next thing to point out here is that comparing raw maneuvers like poultry manure there to compost you can see that um you can you can uh mitigate a little bit there with with compost versus raw manure because it's not going to be pure manure in some cases you're going to have other ingredients in that compost than the manure potentially like bedding or other things that could be lower phosphorus along with the manure or you know a sort of fully formulated compost product. And then also there are sources of nutrients like blood meal or feather meal that provide a lot of nitrogen, 10-12% nitrogen with very little phosphorus. So there are good options for supplying nutrients. I also liked, I think this must have come out of Europe or something like that, this figure here. But night soil compost, I think we all know, maybe we all know what that is, right? That would be, I think, like human manure, biosolids. And so that, you know, has got some phosphorus in it too. Probably not being allowed in your organic operation, but interesting to think about. Next slide, please. So what's up with excessive phosphorus and how do we begin to understand it and deal with that? So soil testing and either testing or at least reading the labels on the amendments that you're using if you've got good analyses available is really important to understand and mitigate excessive phosphorus. Phosphorus is going to be on a standard soil test, and usually that's the Bray 1 test, sometimes Olsen, depending on if you've got alkaline soil or not. But if we're talking about braid levels, anything exceeding 50 to 100 parts per million is considered excessive for most crops. In terms of how we get to the point of building up excessive levels in soils, if you're, again, using something like manure or even compost to meet your nitrogen requirements, you can very quickly, within probably five years or less, but certainly when you get to the point of 10 years, you're going to have phosphorus levels that are really blowing out in your soils. When we look at MSU soil fertility recommendations, what I see there is that if we're somewhere in the 50 to 100 ppm range, the recommendations that are coming back from MSU are generally crop removal, which is something like 40 pounds per acre of P2O5. Once you exceed 100 parts per million on your soil test, MSU recommendations are going to say zero phosphorus needed in that particular soil or that system. Next slide, please. Phosphorus, well, for soil and plants, obviously, we're wasting time, inputs, money that go with applying nutrients that we don't need. If you really build up a lot of excessive phosphorus, you can actually cause problems with micronutrient availability, sort of antagonism with things like iron and zinc. You can inhibit the growth of mycorrhizal fungi, which really oftentimes are helping to kind of mine phosphorus out of soils in relationship with plants. So if there's a ton of phosphorus there, they might not be there doing their job. And then contributing to the growth of some weed species potentially is another risk. For the environment, the main thing that we're concerning about is nutrient loading and neutrification. So this is where we're adding too much nutrients to water. You have algal blooms, you have bacteria that eat those algae, and you're depleting oxygen, which is a huge problem for aquatic life. I think it's really important to note, though, that not all watersheds are currently at risk from excessive phosphorus. So I'm in the Upper Peninsula. Our water is going into Lake Superior. Lake Superior does not really have a phosphorus problem. Now you go down someplace like Lake Erie, you know, shallow, warm, a lot more farms, a lot of other development and human sources of phosphorus from sewage, for example, huge problem. So not all watersheds or environments are created equal and you need to take that into account when you're managing phosphorus. Next slide. What do we do to mitigate excessive phosphorus? You want to monitor your soil P levels directly and also soil pH because soil pH is going to contribute to a nutrient availability, phosphorus and otherwise, and also just, you know, plant health and nutrient uptake. So your ability to actually use the nutrients that you're adding and remove excessive phosphorus absolutely if you're over 100 ppm don't add phosphorus in the form of compost fertilizer or anything else so your options could be you know plant-based compost a little bit less phosphorus or you know nitrogen sources and other nutrient sources feather meal blood meal are good examples that have little to no phosphorus you want to plant crops and actually remove that biomass and select crops that are going to uptake more pea and produce a lot of biomass so legumes cereals brassicas beets cucumbers watermelon are all examples of crops that use a lot of phosphorus but again you have to remove all that material from the site and and you know that includes the harvestable crop and the residue to remove as much as phosphorus as possible that can be a little bit counterintuitive in organic where we're used to trying to you know keep the cover soil covered put organic matter back in the soil etc um use cover crops so reduce tillage and other soil health practices to try to keep soil and pee out of water. The tillage one is a little bit interesting because there's actually some research that suggests that mature no-till systems with really stable structure and macropores can actually have more phosphorus movement through soil. So that one you got to be careful with. But keeping soil in place is obviously important. Next slide, please. Then in terms of salts, this can be a sort of co parallel problem or or separate salts can come from different places into soil the natural weathering of parent material irrigation water that has higher salt levels and then again you know organic manure compost fertilizers we're thinking about variation there organic fertilizers generally have lower salt index than synthetic products so in some ways organic farmers are already in a position to be better off on salts than conventional growers. Mineral sources and liquid formulations generally have a higher salt index than organic and biological sources, so take that into account. And then composting, in this case with salts, can help remove salts from manure because of the leaching that happens in a composting process if it's exposed to precipitation. Poor soil drainage and low rainfall environments can exacerbate salt buildup because we don't have that water moving the salt out of the soil. So high tunnels and greenhouses, classic examples on organic farms of where we see problems with salts. Next slide, please. How do you know you have a salt problem? Well, visual symptoms can be white or dark crusts on the soil, poor drainage, stunted plants, discoloration and wilting that isn't explained by moisture stress or other nutrient stress. To measure it directly, soil salinity is measured based on EC or electrical conductivity of the soil solution. That can be something that you send out to a lab or you can do a test at home with an EC meter. A saline soil is considered to have more than four desiciemens per meter, but a lot of plants can be stressed at lower levels, anything greater than two desiciemens per meter is a concern, especially for vegetable crops. Next slide, please. What can you do to mitigate excessive salts? Use composts and fertilizers with lower salinity. Unfortunately, there's not much information available that I could find on salt indices for organic amendments, and so you might have to really look carefully to find that information. You want to incorporate your amendments to dilute salts. So this can be a little bit difficult because a lot of organic farmers are really psyched these days about top dressing compost and basically creating their own O layer of their soil profile with compost left on the soil surface. Anytime you leave compost or other amendments on the soil surface, that's concentrating not only that fertility, but the salts also near the plants, near the root zone, and that can be a problem. So you can dilute those salts by actually incorporating your amendments. Adding gypsum is another option in some cases to try to displace sodium, improve the structure of your soils that are impacted by salts. However, be aware there's different kinds of gypsum products, and in the case of organic, you need to use mine gypsum, not flue gas desulfurization gypsum. So make sure it's natural mine gypsum. Expose soils to low salt irrigation water and natural precipitation to flush them out. So that can mean uncovering your high tunnel or greenhouse in the winter, letting the snow, do that work for you, or even maybe for a whole growing season? Use drip versus overhead irrigation to control the volume and placement of water. And then if you have a salt problem in the near term, you can also try to select more salt tolerant crops or cover crops. Next slide, please. This is just to show in general kind of the spectrum of salt sensitivity. And so vegetables among some of the more sensitive crops to salinity, wheat, other grains, a little bit less so, forage, legumes, soybeans, a little bit more so. And just because they're less sensitive doesn't mean they're not going to be impacted at some level. Next slide, please. So in conclusion, you know, compost, organic fertilizers, many benefits, really critical to managing soil fertility on organic farms, also great for increasing soil health and producing organic crops. Phosphorus and salts are certainly risks associated with these particular inputs and practices, but they can be mitigated. So, you know, test your soil, test your amendments, select low pea and salt products, adjust your rates accordingly with pea and salts in mind. Don't just, you know, go for that nitrogen contribution, for example, and then adjust your other practices accordingly to mitigate these two risks in terms of irrigation, tillage, cover crops, covered growing spaces like high tunnels. And these are things that can be dealt with absolutely so uh thanks for your time i don't think i have time for questions so we'll pass it off all right thank you james i'll just hop in at katie if that's all right um so i'm going to talk a little bit about the food safety handling of any soil moments that are of animal origin so next slide please um before we get started i also really just want to say that I really truly view food safety as an act of community care. Yes, there are words thrown out like compliance, and we're looking at things that you can't do. But also throughout this little presentation, I want you to think about all the opportunities of things you can do in managed compost, which are maybe ways you're already managing it. But yeah, I just really want to keep that in mind of we want to still produce nutritious and healthy food for folks, but also in a way that is safe. Next slide, please. And also, all the information that is coming today is rooted within these little Russian nesting dolls, the biggest doll being the Food Safety Modernization Act, aka FISMA, that was signed in 2011 by Barack Obama, and that really set forth a lot of regulations for the entire food system, human food, animal food, the transportation of food. And within that, FSMA, one part of that whole law is a produce safety rule finalized in 2015, which is what I focus on and will be pulling information from today. But this law has also been adopted into Michigan law. So here in Michigan, we are our own regulators for it. It's not the FDA coming out onto farms. It's going to be a Michigan Department of Ag person if there were to be a regulatory issue or if someone were to report getting sick, etc. So just from some context before we hop into the rules and the laws. So next slide please. Thank you. So like I mentioned earlier, there's two buckets of soil amendments in produce safety world. The first one is animal origin, so probably what I'll be mostly talking about today. Things like manure, bone, blood meals, anything that basically comes from an animal, even worm castings are in that bucket. And then of course there's non-animal origin things like plant -based and synthetic products which this is an organic webinar so I'm assuming that myself included we're like oh there's some risk to using maybe some synthetic chemicals in certain places in certain times on certain commodities but really the produce safety rule only focuses on the animal origin or the biological amendments because they're the more risky ones in terms that they are more likely to carry a pathogen that could get someone sick so that's kind of what we're going to be focusing on today is all the animal origin pathways. Next slide please. So with the first bucket within the untreated or within the soil amendment animal origin area management and produce safety is you have option A which is untreated compost. That is basically anything that is a raw animal product. So if you have a stack of manure sitting for two years yes it's been there for a really long time however to actively treat or finish a compost so you have to manage it you have to see what kind of temperature it reached if you turned it etc so even if you left something there sitting for a decade but you have no verification of it reaching certain aspects to be quote reducing pathogens the FDA views that as still a raw animal product so that's why they kind of have these to the left here this information there is no application interval within the produce safety rule of hey you can't spread manure within this many days of harvest because they're still doing research on what those days are so instead for the time being they refer to the NLP national organic program standards of for if it made if whatever you're applying that is a raw product that you don't know what temperature it reached so if it's blood meal or raw manure or if it's fish emulsion that says hey this is not verified safe or we haven't reduced the pathogens in this product so read the label because the label is the law but for any raw untreated compost animal origin product that may contact the edible portion of the crop you have to apply that 120 days before harvest according to NLP standards which is what the FDA refers to in the produce safety rule. If it does not have probability of contacting that of a portion of the crop like let's say an orchard setting then you have a shorter window of applying it 90 days before harvest. So once again, you have that 90 to 100 day frame. If you're using any of these, you know, piled or aged manure, contaminated compost, like you do have a compost pile that you're actively managing, but then an animal gets in it, that has to be considered contaminated. So protect your compost piles, which is why I put fencing on this one here. worm castings fun fact the FDA views worms as livestock so they view worm castings as animal manure so they then view vermicompost as an unfinished product if you're not then taking that vermicompost and getting it to a certain heat etc it's a whole thing we try to take them up on it here in Michigan and Michigan State especially and the FDA wants to see literature and who has the funds to fund that to be determined um that's just a personal take from me but just a fun fact about worm castings um one thing i really want to point out in these words in red here is that anytime you're using a raw animal product it must not contact the harvestable portion of the crop if you do you cannot harvest that crop do not pick poopy produce rule number one of today um and then of course if you are using a raw animal product just thinking about ways you're handling it and storing it so it doesn't get contaminated or that you're touching it and then going into the field you're keeping things clean you have a separate boots etc and then I also have a caveat about no human manure or night soils which James mentioned earlier I haven't heard that term even if you are actively treating let's say you have a composting toilet and you take it and you actively treat that pile of compost the FDA says the only quote human manure source you could use is a biosolid that has the EPA regulations that it follows that comes from wastewater treatment. And that's honestly then in the FDA's eyes not considered animal origin because it has been so far treated. It is now a biosolid and not human manure. All right, next slide. Just touching on domesticated animals really quick because if you do have your own that are the source of your untreated or raw manure or just organic compost. Just thinking about the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and processes you have in place to ensure that cross -contamination doesn't happen from handling those animals into the produce or any activity area where you're handling produce. So if people are directly contacting, I have a quote here from the produce safety rule, if they're direct contacting them, making sure they're minimizing the likelihood of contaminating produce by having separate boots and they're washing their hands make maybe their shirt got really you know covered in poop it happens i grew up on a cattle farm um that they're switching shirts before they're then going to harvest in the produce field so practices like that you can come talk to me that's the job but um next uh slide please and then there's the second bucket of treated compost you have the untreated or raw and then you have treated and that means that you have somehow followed a scientifically valid method to ensure that the pathogens have been reduced via that compost. Temperature is the most common way this is done and if you can see to the left here there's two different methods I most commonly see. The first one is being a turned or aerated composting. It has to reach 131 degrees Fahrenheit for a minimum of 15 days with a minimum of five turnings and then has a curing stage. If you're not aerating it and it's just static composting has to reach 131 degrees for three days followed by curing stage and all that has to be documented. If you do those practices but you don't write it down in the FDA's eyes there's no way to verify that is actually the method was followed the pathogens have actually been reduced it's kind of like your word versus their word type deal and you don't want to be in that situation so if you're doing that just please please write it down it covers your butt. I know it's tedious I've been on produce farms you're working in the flow you're trying to get stuff done but it really sucks when you're doing all that and then something happens that just reverses all your time and effort so really please keep the records if you are actively treating or turning a compost pile and then of course thinking about practices to reduce the risk even if it is a treated product of when you're applying it once again to the product maybe what type of crop it what's nearby it and then of course preventing critters from getting into the pile because if once again they get in and they poop in it and now it's contaminated again and then keeping the separation of finished and unfinished piles if you get your compost from morgan's or another composting company make sure you get a letter of certification or verification they use different terms saying yes we have treated this to reduce these pathogens it's reached this temperature it's safe to use at any point in time you don't have to follow a certain per day interval before harvest so that's kind of one of the benefits of treated compost is yes it's all this work and there's also like the nutrient benefit right of like soil health and stuff but for food safety the benefit is that you could theoretically use treated compost anytime especially if you're having a lot of bed turnover in the vegetable operations and things like that. So next slide. If you find poop, what do you do? So I know this is a little different than intentionally applying manure to your field or something like that. However, regardless if you have poop intentionally or unintentionally in your field, whether it's from wildlife or something like that, it is a requirement, and I quoted the rule here again, that you are monitoring the growing area immediately prior to harvest to make sure that poop is not touching anything and if it is then there's some steps you can take there's options you can have a buffer zone how many feet that looks depends on the type of crop the elevation is it gonna rain there's a lot of gray area there and if you also once again need help navigating that gray area that's what I'm here for but you can also remove it with a designated poop shovel that's clearly labeled wash your hands put it in a place where it's not going to contaminate something else and then you can flag it but if you're going to flag it make sure people are aware to look for flags because one time I was working on a produce farm it was winter I went in the hoop house at 2 p.m to harvest spinach because it finally thawed and there was a little tiny flag I swear it was this tall that had I think it was white or something I couldn't really see it that well over the spinach until I got to that spot and I was like oh why is this flag here and then I've been harvesting around the poop I don't know what I did or didn't harvest that did or didn't touch it because I wasn't trained on hey look for flags before you start harvesting because we monitor or hey this is our policy you know so make sure that whatever you do next slide please Katie also that goes into this sorry no matter what policy you have in place whether you're having untreated compost product and you're applying it within 90 to 100 days or you're treating a compost product and you're recording that please please invest in your humans that do that work whether that's yourself your family your neighbor and a hired employee because if you have those policies in place but they're not accurately followed things will happen that will be a waste of time and money and honestly really good produce if you're the community so your front lines are your humans please invest in them even though we're talking about my opinion poop today they're also really important in this conversation all right next slide thank you katie and then um the The Michigan Produce Safety Team, I'm a produce safety technician based out of West Michigan. There's six of us here in the state. Our job, like the MAEAP program, is to literally help you navigate what food safety looks like for you and your operation in a way that is free. It's confidential. It's non -regulatory. We are a safe space to ask those questions. And we also have cost share available. So I bought really expensive sanitizers. I bought three-bin wash sinks, trainings, water testing, you name it. We're there for it. so please don't hesitate to reach out because sometimes produce safety is an intimidating topic to approach as well as there's a lot of gray areas of what may be risky what may be not and there's a lot of factors to put into that equation but that's what we're here is to help you figure out the solution and the answer to that that problem so that's all I got for you guys today I see you put something in the chat Katie oh that's good okay bio sludge can't use organic so did not know that learned something new thank you yep yeah i feel like most people avoid it anyways but there is that caveat yeah so i just want to put a big thank you out to all of our speakers and we have we have a little over 10 minutes for questions so i'd love to hear um any questions if you want to open up your mic you can also type your question into the chat as you prefer. One question that I had that I was curious about, and this one is for James, I was curious, can you use that same EC testing tool to test the amendment itself or are the rates too high and it doesn't work in the amendments? That's a good question. I don't have direct experience with that, but I would think you could. So I believe what's happening there is generally you're testing a soil solution or in that case like an amendment solution and that dilution procedure is going to be pretty important so and if it was a really high salt concentration product I think you could adjust that dilution accordingly or a lab could do so to get you the right numbers you know I think I just lost my train of thought yeah I don't know but uh but yeah oh i know what i was going to say about the salt index so you know uh commercial fertilizers synthetic fertilizers are are rated based on their salt index and that gives you a a sense of the uh salts per unit uh of nutrient too so um unfortunately again i couldn't find salt index information really for any organic amendments maybe because that's like the variability is there that would need to be addressed on a case -by-case basis. But that's another way of understanding salinity or salt in these amendments would be that salt index versus the EC. Yeah, and I would think that some of the kelp products and other ocean-derived fertilizers would be pretty high. Totally, yeah, I definitely saw that. Yeah, definitely saw that stand out when i was reading um and you know another one we don't really deal with in the midwest but if you have like saltwater intrusion or if you're on a coastal area that has you know natural salt water that's another another potential risk um that either coming through the groundwater or like through the air you know blowing on and down to your soils any questions from the from the educators or the farmers that have joined us today if not i had a question for morgan i was curious um the you mentioned the blood meal and i wondered if that is like heat treated so that it's safe or does it vary from product to product i don't know how they make blood meal but I imagine it has to be like boiled or something yeah I think it depends on I've seen people make it themselves and also then get it as like a finished product at you know family farm family farm and home or something like that and it should say when you buy it from a place on the product how it was made or I've honestly had to call the manufacturer to ask because it doesn't say that and I want to make sure that they can use it whenever they need to use it versus a 9200 day sometimes the manufacturer is really easy to get a hold of and sometimes it's not but from my understanding is yeah there's some heat component involved so then if you are making yourself just verifying what heat temperature it gets to and so I have I've supplied a lot of compost thermometers for folks before at different lengths and whatever size pile they need or whatever product they're making but that's my current understanding but I'm not sure if there's different ways i could look more into that yeah yeah yeah great so we do have a question from from kalamazoo uh phosphorus buildup from long-term compost or manure application how much pushback do you experience from producers using these practices that just don't think it's a big deal yeah that's a great question so um actually if you talk to you know my meep tech or folks that we intersect with here, I could sometimes be accused of being one of those farmers that doesn't think it's a big deal. So here's my perspective. We often talk about excessive phosphorus from a water quality perspective. And the reality of that situation is that is not a problem everywhere. So when my Meep tech or verifier comes out to the farm here and wants to talk about phosphorus from a water quality perspective, I say Lake Superior is actually phosphorus deficient because of all the muscles, you know, ******* all the nutrients out of that water. And we've done surface water monitoring, you know, downslope at the creeks that cross our farm. And phosphorus is non-detectable despite our organic practices and excessive phosphorus in some of our fields right at the top of the hill. And, you know, intensive movement of water, not so much soil, but water. And we're grazing animals on that creek side as well. So I think the way that I approach that with producers that would be in my situation or would be skeptical of the risk from a water quality perspective is talk to them about economics and talk to them about crop productivity. So if you've got excessive phosphorus, you know, and you're continuing to apply it, basically you're, you know, wasting money in some cases, depending on where that fertility is coming from. And you're potentially contributing to real issues as far as nutrient imbalance nutrient antagonism in your soil so there are direct risks for the producer as well and i think uh the problem that we have here and a lot of organic farmers have is that um our phosphorus is coming from our composted beef cattle manure that is essentially free right and if i want to uh not apply phosphorus and meet my nutrient demands i'm buying in a product and and it's really hard to make that argument uh especially if we're talking about you know closed loop systems and integrating crop and livestock and, you know, and all of that to not use that manure resource is really difficult. So, you know, what do we do? We try to, we compost our manure. We try to apply it every other year, every third year as kind of a baseline fertility input. And then every year we're amending, you know, for nitrogen and things with no phosphorus risk sources like feather meal is our main one or potassium sulfate for potassium so yeah it's it's interesting but you know talk talk to farmers about their pocketbook and about their their crop their crops uh and that will usually hit home maybe even more so than water and they might be right about water not being a risk in their watershed james and potentially paul how does that come into play with right to farm standards so you can argue that to a meat verifier what if it's a right to farm inspection and you get a phosphorus flag yeah that's a good question i mean um if it if your phosphorus is excessive um that is it should be something that you're working on addressing um but you know those those gaps right uh that kind of dictate that those standards they're they're written from a broad perspective and so yeah i mean um if it comes down to it and you're you're out of compliance you're out of compliance but the the the standard is different than the reality in some cases you know because environment is variable um but yeah that's a good question is anyone aware of a right to farm complaint that is phosphorus oriented i'm surprised to hear that that would even come up it comes up in nutrient loading especially if you've got leachate or you know point source so there's fish killed on stream so it's it's just be cautious of of that when you're managing phosphorus and organic soils because it can get you in a right to farm situation and location like you say james i mean like where you are where we are in the west bakery basin phosphorus is much bigger concern with you know algal blooms and it's so yeah um we're much more conscious of it down here but and again with with the with the a lot of i mean legacy there's a huge amount of legacy phosphorus from you know maybe there's a organic farm which is great on an old dairy farm which you know has been applying years and years and years of manure manure right next to the barn uh and these soils there might be sky high in phosphorus um and yeah being in west Lake Erie basin. The west Lake Erie basin it's a much bigger uh bigger concern for us um and but yeah like like you say james if you can you know reduce farmers phosphorus um in their pocketbook they're going to listen to that all day long for sure um and potentially they've got maybe some of the fields are testing lower we can you know move applications farther away from the barn if need be um or or one of the producers i work with thankfully he's got pretty high phosphorus levels but he's also growing corn for silage which has taken off it's taken off a lot of phosphorus um so it's it's keeping it uh high but still sort of under control yeah yeah absolutely yeah don't get me wrong i'm not saying that phosphorus is not a problem in a lot of places it is a very serious problem in a lot of places um but yeah like like so many things in agriculture context is really important and so um yeah we have to we have to get into the the nitty-gritty details on these issues and and i think uh farmers understand that you know each farm is different i'll just add that a lot of the organic no-till farmers are going to compost top no-till in their vegetable systems and this is going to build up phosphorus quite quickly, particularly on some soil types. So that's something for educators to watch out for. It's a good practice in many ways. Farmers love it, but the phosphorus is something to keep an eye on. So we've just released the closing poll, and I want to do a final thank you for all three of our speakers and for those who've joined us today. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thanks, Katie, for doing the slides too. So great job, guys. Thanks for being here, Jen, and a good question. Thank you. I think we can end the poll. We're at eight of eight. I think everyone has done. Yeah. Y'all are seeing it if you're curious about those poll results. Okay.