Survival and Overland Transport of Fecal Coliform under Canadian Prairie Conditions

In-field winter feeding of cattle is becoming a common practice in the Canadian Prairie. Cattle feeding in-field during winter provides economic advantages to agricultural producers over feeding the cattle in confined corrals by eliminating the extra work and cost associated with feed transport and manure management. Despite the economic advantages; wintering grounds for livestock operations can have profound impacts on water quality. Animal waste accumulated during winter can be transported to surface water with spring snowmelt. The potential impact on snowmelt runoff quality of winter in-field bale-grazing under the cold climate of Saskatchewan is being evaluated under the Saskatchewan component of the Canada-wide Watershed Evaluation of Beneficial Management Practices (WEBs) program which is located in the Pipestone Creek watershed. This study is intended to complement the Saskatchewan WEBs project and it aims to support the evaluation of in-field bale-grazing during winter. The design of the Saskatchewan WEBs project enabled the evaluation of in-field bale-grazing during winter (W) compared to the conventional manure management practice associated with wintering cattle in confined corrals, where the manure piled during winter is spread on field in the fall (F). The control fields did not receive any animal waste beyond the spring and summer grazing season. The data collected over three years showed that adding extra animal waste to the field past the grazing season can significantly increase the number of bacteria in snowmelt runoff despite the age of the waste. The wintering fields (W) reported the highest flow-weighted count over the years (2674 CFU/100ml). However, the mean count of FC from W fields (497 CFU/100ml) was not significantly different (p=0.74>0.05) from the F fields (364 CFU/100 ml). The mean count of FC in snowmelt runoff from the control fields (110 CFU/100ml) can be well below the recreational water standards of 200 CFU/100 ml. As a result, feeding the animal in confinements during winter and spreading the collected manure on field the next fall may result in the same microbial pollution as that associated with the animal grazing in-field during winter. The study recommends including microbial pollution in the evaluation of beneficial management practices on pasture.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral -- first

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Engineering - Environmental Systems

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Baker-Ismail, Samar Ali

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• McMartin, Dena
• Cade-Menun, Barbara

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Hardenbicker, Ulrike
• Ng, Tsun Wai Kelvin
• Yost, Christopher

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/4215

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/7680