Cows take fresh air

The Finnish lagoon

Finnish view

Finland

Because of long winter their growing season in the southern part of Finland is six month and in the northern part 2–3 month. Winter has also good points: they haven’t so much plant diseases. All plants from middle of Europe don’t grow in Finland, but some subspecies can grow here. Those harvest isn’t so good however.

Nowadays especially livestock farms are coming bigger very fast and farms’ technology are coming higher. Farmers have to consider better circle of minerals in their farms, because their distances between fields are long and the farmers haven’t so much time anymore to manure. They have also so much ground water what they have to protect.

Manure storage:

Normal they have three different kind of system to storage manure:

All kinds of cow stable can be used slurry, and storage it in lagoons. Their lagoons are made by concrete elements. If you use slurry, you have to think how you use your waste of feeds, example you can make a compost.

In loose stall tables can be used hard manure with straw. You can put all your manure and waste of feeds in the same storage.

In old tie-up stable are used hard manure with straw, but urine are taken apart to own lagoon.

Lagoons are usually open on top side. It causes problems with rainwater and volatilize from ammonia. Usually the lagoons are near by the farms, but you can have more lagoons nearer to the fields. Manure storage have to ge enough for all manure, what comes in year when animals are in a stable.

Manuring machines:

In Finland manure is spread usually first to surface on field and then they plough it to the ground. It is possible to use that kind of method with all kind of manure, and this is the best way use with grain. 

With slurry and urine can be used injector behind of wagon. With injector you can grow the grass longer time because you don’t have to cultivate the grass.

Effects on ground water:

Finland has about 700 km3 ground water and that is five times more than surface. However that is not much, because the layer of soil is thin and it is situated on bedrock which doesn’t penetrate water. The ground water doesn’t run out for a long time yet, because it rains a lot in Finland.

The ground water is in many pieces under the ground, what is a good thing, because if the ground water becomes polluted, damages stays small.

The ground water pollution is a problem in Finland, because they put lots of salt to roads in winter and it goes to ground water easily. Also turning sour and environmental poisons are a threat to the ground water.

How to apply manure:

They spread manure on the fields once or twice in a year in Finland. Usually Finns have to obey EU’s environment support which says when you can fertilize and how much you can put minerals on the field per hectare. The farmers do fertilizer plan by their selves and they calculate how much they can use manure. You can get more information about fertilizing in Finland from here.

Average Finnish cow manure

Slurry                                                kg/t

Dry matter%  N total   Nmin  Ndissoluble     P       K     Mg    Ca     Na     Density

5,5               3,0        0,4         1,8          0,5    3,3    0,4    0,8   0,3     992,7

Hard manure with straw

21,5            5,4         0,3         1,7          1,6    4,7   1,2    2,4    0,4     782,8

Urine

1,7              2,5        0,2          1,8          0,1    3,7   0,1    0,1    0,2     996,0

Problem with manure applying is short time in Finland. In spring they have to manure so soon as it is possible before they sow. In autumn is more time, but then comes more mineral losts. And even there can be good weather, they have to stop manure because of rules.

Page updated 12.4.2006