Funding Agency: U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Collaborators: Michelle Soupir (Iowa State University); Adina Howe (Iowa State University); Lisa Schulte Moore (Iowa State University); Matthew Helmers (Iowa State University); Thomas Moorman (USDA ARS); Heather Allen (USDA ARS)

Land application of manure is a common method of recycling organic matter and nutrients back to cropland in the United States (US). However, antimicrobial residues in manure from livestock administration can be introduced into the environment during manure fertilization and can persist in soil due to insufficient degradation. Prairie strips are a novel edge-of-field vegetative system, already demonstrated as a cost-effective strategy for substantially improving water quality in runoff from row-cropped agricultural watersheds, with minimal impacts on crop production. Our goal is to demonstrate the impact of prairie strips on mitigating the spread of antimicrobial resistance to the environment.

1.  Determine the effectiveness of prairie strips to retain AMR from manure amended croplands;
2.  Characterize AMR mitigation in an existing prairie strip;
3.  Characterize AMR fate and transport in a model prairie strip system to evaluate and predict performance and optimize design for  AMR mitigation;
4.  Integrate extension and outreach tools to ensure prairie strips are recognized as a potential AMR mitigation strategy and  implemented for this purpose.

As part of the STRIPS team, University at Buffalo’s (UB) goal is to optimize methods for the analysis of antimicrobials in soil, runoff water, and manure, to be used in the determination of the efficiency of antimicrobial mitigation by prairie strip integration. Overall, the STRIPS project involves the development, evaluation and implemention of a new practice to mitigate antimicrobial resistance at the edge-of-the-field. Our findings will be shared through extension and outreach efforts and will benefit the agricultural community and researchers.

Recent Related Publications:

1. Hurst, J. J. et al. Trends in Antimicrobial Resistance Genes in Manure Blend Pits and Long-Term Storage Across Dairy Farms with Comparisons to Antimicrobial Usage and Residual Concentrations. Environ. Sci. Technol. 53, 2405–2415 (2019).

2. Wallace, J. S. & Aga, D. S. Enhancing Extraction and Detection of Veterinary Antibiotics in Solid and Liquid Fractions of Manure. J. Environ. Qual. 45, 471–479 (2016).

3. Wallace, J. S., Garner, E., Pruden, A. & Aga, D. S. Occurrence and transformation of veterinary antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in dairy manure treated by advanced anaerobic digestion and conventional treatment methods. Environ. Pollut. 236, 764–772 (2018).

4. Hurst, J. J., Wallace, J. S. & Aga, D. S. Method development for the analysis of ionophore antimicrobials in dairy manure to assess removal within a membrane-based treatment system. Chemosphere 197, 271–279 (2018).

5. Aga, D. S. et al. Challenges in the Measurement of Antibiotics and in Evaluating Their Impacts in Agroecosystems: A Critical Review. J. Environ. Qual. 45, 407–419 (2016).

6. Wallace, J. S., Garner, E., Pruden, A. & Aga, D. S. Occurrence and transformation of veterinary antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes in dairy manure treated by advanced anaerobic digestion and conventional treatment methods. Environ. Pollut. 236, 764–772 (2018).