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Title: Vegetative buffers for swine odor mitigation - wind tunnel evaluation of air flow dynamics

Author
item Sauer, Thomas
item HAAN, FRED - IA STATE UNIVERSITY
item TYNDALL, JOHN - IA STATE UNIVERSITY
item Hernandez Ramirez, Guillermo
item Trabue, Steven - Steve
item Pfeiffer, Richard
item Singer, Jeremy

Submitted to: Mitigating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/19/2008
Publication Date: 5/20/2008
Citation: Sauer, T.J., Haan, F.L., Tyndall, J.C., Hernandez Ramirez, G., Trabue, S.L., Pfeiffer, R.L., Singer, J.W. 2008. Vegetative buffers for swine odor mitigation - wind tunnel evaluation of air flow dynamics. In: Proceedings of Mitigating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations, May 19-20, 2008, Des Moines, IA. p.30-34.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Vegetative buffers are a cost effective method to mitigate odor and particulate emissions from swine confined facilities. Establishment of vegetative buffers can be done prior to beginning operations, or during any given point in the lifetime of the swine facility. Design of vegetative buffers should consider prevailing wind direction and speed, tree specie growth habitat and longevity as well as climate and soil requirements. As odor mitigation strategy around swine facilities, vegetative buffer should consider building type, facility management, animal diet, climate, and local environmental conditions (especially wind speed and direction, turbulence, vegetative cover, and topography). According to our low-speed wind tunnel studies, vegetative buffers planted upwind confined swine facilities have shown definitive benefits on regulating air flow dynamics around confined swine operations and mitigate odor transport downstream. Additional potential benefits of using vegetative buffers upwind in swine facilities include: tree products (e.g. firewood), aesthetics, snow control, wild life habitat, soil carbon sequestration, buffer for extreme temperature fluctuations, and potential soil erosion control. However, excessive wind speed reduction during summers may affect animal comfort and performance, hence too dense vegetative buffers might not be beneficial for the overall swine operations. In general, our simulation experiments results showed that a single row of willow trees as a vegetative buffer may be a cost effective methods for wind speed reduction and odor constituent emissions from swine operations. In the study discussed here, the cost to a pork producer of a single row of willow trees as vegetative buffer was $0.005/pig over a 20 year period, while three rows of trees and single row of hardwood trees scenarios cost $0.03 and 0.02/pig, respectively. Site preparation and establishment phase were the largest costs.