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A Decision-Support System For Economic Feasibility Of Subsurfaced Poultry Litter, Tim J. Stults, Michael P. Popp

Journal of Applied Farm Economics

Cattle (Bos spp.) producers routinely spread fertilizer or broadcast poultry (Gallus gallus L.) litter to improve forage production. With poultry litter widely available across the southeastern United States and being a cheaper source of plant nutrition than commercial fertilizer when proximal to application sites, the novel application of litter below the soil surface, while costly, allows for greater nutrient retention than broadcasting. Since quantifying costs and benefits of subsurfaced litter is complex, we develop and present a decision support spreadsheet for automated farm-scale model comparisons across modes of nutrient management. We compare subsurfaced litter to commercial fertilizer and broadcast litter …