The grant funding will support the advancement of the 2050 Environmental Stewardship Goals set through the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy. Researchers from UC Davis and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources will be working on a six-year project looking at building soil health to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also improving water quality. Agronomy and Nutrient Management Farm Advisor, Nick Clark said that part of the project includes evaluating the use of manure products as fertilizer to potentially expand its use.

“Part of what we’re looking at is the macronutrient content. We’re particularly interested in that because of the potential for some of these materials to be utilized off-farm or integrated into some downstream processing like advanced solid separation and nutrient recovery,” Clark explained. “So, a great deal of it is exploratory. But the goal is to learn more about what the economic nutrient value is of these materials and what their physical composition is and how that might be a fit or a hinderance to certain technologies.”