Ammonia and PM Emissions from a Tom Turkey Barn in Iowa

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made toward collection of baseline data on air emissions from U.S. animal feeding operations. However, limited data exist in the literature regarding turkey air emissions. The project described in this paper continuously monitors ammonia (NH3) and particulate matter (PM) emissions from turkey production houses in Iowa (IA) and Minnesota (MN) for one year, with IA monitoring Hybrid tom turkeys and MN monitoring Hybrid hens. Mobile Air Emission Monitoring Units are used in the continuous monitoring. Data collection and analysis has been ongoing since May 2, 2007 for the IA site and October 9, 2007 for the MN site. Based on the one-year measurement at the IA site involving three flocks, daily NH3 emissions (g/d-bird) from the IA turkey house varied from 0.04 to 6.4 (mean of 1.9) for flock 1 (May-Aug), 0.2 to 3.4 (mean of 1.3) for flock 2 (Aug-Dec), and 0.16 to 3.8 (mean 1.4) for flock 3 (Dec-Apr). The PM10 emissions (g/d-bird) were 0.04 to 1.6 (mean of 0.58), 0.04 to 0.39 (mean of 0.2), and 0.04 to 0.82 (mean of 0.37) for flocks 1, 2, and 3, respectively; and the concomitant PM2.5 emissions (g/d-bird) were 0 to 0.11 (mean of 0.048), 0 to 0.05 (mean of 0.021), and 0 to 0.14 (mean of 0.053) for flocks 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Annual mean emissions from the tom turkeys (including downtime emission), expressed as grams of constituent per bird marketed, were 169 g NH3, 40 g PM10, and 4.3 g PM2.5 per bird marketed. Data collection and analysis at the MN site are ongoing.