Liquid manure on wheat stubble, field lies between Burton Rd. and US 223, just west of Springville Hwy.  Can smell it 2 miles away.  Again we ask – what crop is being fertilized here?  (S. Branch/Raisin watershed)

Hartland liquid manure from dragline, no applicator, spewing livestock sewage all out  onto this newly-disked field.  Carefully calibrated agronomic rate?  SE corner of Beecher Rd. and Hughes Hwy.  Another smelly day, and it’s going to get much worse here as draglines are laid out in fields all around. (Bear Cr./Raisin watershed)

Recent liquid manure application on alfalfa hay field on the north side of Tomer Rd., near Lake Hudson.  This hay is fed to dairy and beef cattle, horses, sheep, and other livestock.

Not all manure applications are liquid.  Sometimes dry solids are applied, sometimes manure is dredged from the lagoons, put into dump-trailers, and hauled by tractor or semi to a field where it is dumped, or stockpiled, in one place.  Equipment is then used to push it around, spread it out over the field.  Below is a series of pictures of just such an application on the north side of Woerner Rd., between Gilbert and Springville Hwys.  (S. Branch/Raisin watershed)
 
First, we follow the manure slurry trail, spilled from the dump trailer.  (Hint:  Run your car through the car wash if you get behind one of these things, otherwise the manure on your tires will stink for a while.)  Dust cloud is the semi.

Trucks go to the field and dump their loads.  Manure slurry application on wheat stubble.

Then, drive around on it a bit or spread it out somehow.  In this photo, tractor operator was driving around in circles on top of the sludge.  Carefully calibrated agronomic rate?  For fertilizing what crop, exactly?

Tractor stands by with chisel plow, waiting to incorporate the sewage blanket into the soil.  One semi (red in the dust cloud, right) is dumping its load, the next one (at the right edge) is getting ready.  Smells really, really bad.