Jerry Clark
Crops & Soils Educator for Chippewa, Dunn, & Eau Claire Counties
UW-Madison Extension

Manure is the oldest, natural fertilizer source known to agriculture. Manure has value since it contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, micronutrients, organic matter, and microorganisms. Putting a dollar value on manure can be challenging when selling or purchasing. With synthetic and commercial fertilizer, many options exist today to meet soil and crop nutrient needs and we can use these commercial fertilizer values to determine the cost of fertilizer manure is replacing to determine a base value on manure.

Using urea (46-0-0), diammonium phosphate (DAP) (18-46-0), and potash (0-0-60) and their current price per ton, we can determine a price per pound of nutrient. Book values of nutrient content from liquid dairy manure with 4% to 11% dry matter incorporated between 1 hour and 3 days are used in the example below. Nutrient content from manure is highly influenced by the type of manure, application method, and incorporation time.