Nobody likes to walk through a freestall pen and see manure laden with flecks of yellow corn pericarp. To any dairy manager, herd manager or nutritionist, “pretty poo” is all the rage – and pretty means consistently fleckless. This pretty manure is not only important to the diet but also a key part of every dairy’s bottom line.

Palmer amaranth is a prolific seed producer that competes with growing space for corn, soybeans and other commodities important to the dairy industry. An unlikely risk management tool to reduce this weed’s presence in fields is proper manure handling.

When I was young, I saw a magazine advertisement about manure spreaders. The catch phrase was that they stood behind all their equipment but the manure spreader.