Project Number: 5368-12630-002-02
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: Jan 01, 2008
End Date: Dec 31, 2008

Objective:
The objective is to measure the relative contributions of ammonia, volatile organic compounds, and bioaerosol emissions over one year from different areas within a large scale dairy to identify areas for further research and air quality improvement.

Approach:
We will identify a dairy with good separation between pens, feed storage and manure storage areas in order to reduce the incidence of cross contamination between source areas. Ideally source areas will be situated so that prevailing winds (east-west) do not cause measurement interference among areas. A portable weather station will be located near the site to provide general meteorological data including wind speed and direction, solar radiation, soil temperature, air temperature and relative humidity. The four monitoring areas on the dairy farm will be the pens, feed storage area, manure storage area, and one other area which will be determined once the site is selected. Equipment will be installed on Monday with continuous sampling until Friday for one week out of each month, for a total of 12 weeks. Air pumps for bioaerosol and VOC samplers require 110 VAC, which will require us to install electrical outlets near monitoring areas or purchase solar charged, battery power supplies. Three towers with passive samplers for ammonia detection will be set up at each monitoring area on the dairy, with samplers set approximately six feet high. The samplers will be changed each day after allowing for 24 hours of ammonia collection, and analyzed at the end of the week. Bioaerosol samplers on tripods will be placed at a height of approximately 6 feet at upwind and downwind positions from the designated sampling areas. Once daily, triplicate samples will be sequentially collected only during low to medium wind events. Afterwards the samples will be immediately carried to our laboratory on ice. Concentrations of culturable heterotrophic bacteria, gram-negative enteric bacteria, Escherichia Coli, and fungi will be determined after incubation on selective growth media. Gram-negative bacteria will be further identified by sequence analysis of 16S ribosomal DNA clones; fungi will be identified by examination of colony morphology. Programmable, low volume gas samplers will be mounted at approximately 6 feet at each of the four monitoring areas. Air will be drawn through glass sorbent tubes to capture VOC chemicals present in the air. At least 3 samples per day per station will be collected during the 5-day sampling period. Gas samples will be analyzed for a number of known odorants. A few samples will be used for detailed screening to identify unknown odorants. Documents reimbursable with IDEAL. Log 34466.