Special Opinion to the Cape Charles Mirror by Chas Cornweller
Wednesday night the Accomack County Planning Commission held a work session at the Melfa airport conference room. The first steps were taken to rewrite and update the County’s zoning as it affects location of new poultry houses.
Planning director Mr. Rich Morrison invited guest speakers that included the poultry industry and local farmers. First to speak was Mr. Rick Hall, of the Melfa area, who is a local farmer. Hall explained that his parcels totaling approximately 3500 acres were under a nitrogen plan that was known as the Green Seekers Plan. Hall said that he had no chicken farms and bought manure from a broker to distribute on his corn, wheat, and soybean crops. Not having enough available manure Hall said that in addition to the manure that 25% of his nitrogen needs were purchased in the form of liquid nitrogen to supplement the shortage of chicken manure. Hall said that he believed that two thirds of the farm acreage in Accomack County was not using chicken manure because there was no more available. Under the Green Seekers plan Hall said that phosphorus per acre was the controlling or limiting factor. He reported that approximately 3 tons of manure was applied per acre for corn crops, and 1 ton of manure was applied for wheat crops. Again in these scenarios liquid nitrogen is bought to supplement the land needs. He gave the comparison that chicken manure was approximately equal to 2-2- 2 fertilizer. In some cases Hall said that Northampton farmers were hauling manure from as far away as Maryland but in his experience the hauling expense was prohibitive.
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