Soil scientist Andrew Sharpley tracks phosphorus runoff from farms. Instruments are in place in four areas along this stream to measure how much phosphorus leaves certain areas of farmland.

Planning for phosphorus runoff means even more manure will be left over. Because manure is expensive to move to other locations, agricultural specialists are exploring ways to make it more manageable. In 1997, Penn State's Organic Materials Processing and Education Center, a partnership of the College, Office of Physical Plant, and Housing and Food Services, piloted a project in which they composted green wastes and napkins from a student dining hall with manure and straw from College farms. The resulting mulch enriched landscape plantings on the University Park campus. In 1998, the project expanded to include materials from four dining commons, leaf and yard waste from campus landscaping, dairy manure, and soybean fodder. In all, 335 tons of campus waste were converted to 249 tons of usable compost.

Today, farmers precisely apply manure to croplands to minimize excess nutrients and optimize plant production.

"The College farms are a microcosm of what's happening with farms at the urban fringe in terms of nutrients, neighbors, odors, and nuisance," says agricultural engineer Bob Graves, who helps direct the project. "We have herds of livestock on the edge of the campus. Most of our land is surrounded by high-priced houses and heavily traveled roads, so we're doing everything we can to make manure handling cost-effective and neighbor-friendly in an environmentally responsible manner. We're demonstrating how the farm and nonfarm neighbors can co-exist and help each other, by recycling the nutrients in the compost back to the needs of the community.

At A. H. Hoffman, Inc., employee Edguardo Rodriquez fills bags of potting soil made from Lancaster County manure.

Manure is a very active biological material, Graves explains. "Lots of microbes like to grow in it -- that's why it smells. If you just leave manure in a pit or tank, most of those bugs will be anaerobic, and the most common anaerobes generate odors. But, just like you can get the kind of hog or chicken you want by controlling their feed and environment, we can control the microbes we grow when composting. By controlling the environment and feedstocks -- the materials we mix in with the manure, like straw -- we can get the end product we want and not have objectionable odors or other undesirable by-products in the process."

Specialists like Graves talk with farmers about how composting can make their manure more marketable. "When you compost manure, you end up with a product that's more versatile," he says. "It's easier to distribute. People might even pay for it." Recently, Graves spent a day at A. H. Hoffman, Inc., with Lancaster County extension agent Leon Ressler. "When you buy Hoffman's potting soils, there's a good chance it has Lancaster County manure in it," he says. "When we were going through the processing line, Leon stood there with a smile on his face and said, 'Every bag of that potting soil is another bag of nutrients leaving Lancaster County.'"