July 26, 2023
Dr. Mary Lusk, CLUE faculty and assistant professor of soil and water at GCREC, explains that the Manure BMPs Mobile Responsive Website Project (https://animal.ifas.ufl.edu/equinebmps/) is a collaboration with UF Animal Sciences and provides environmentally-friendly practices for dealing with manure on small farms. Small acreage and hobby horse farms are common throughout Florida. Horse manure can be a source of excess nutrients (e.g., nitrogen and phosphorus) and pathogens to water bodies. Therefore, it is crucial that owners of these small acreage horse farms become knowledgeable of good manure management practices and use that knowledge to protect surface water bodies and drinking water wells on their property. Website users can click on “virtual assessment tool” to see how their farm scores in terms of protecting water quality in Florida. After using the assessment tool, users are given recommendations for ways they may be able to improve manure management to better protect water bodies in Florida.
