Alberta Soil Information Viewer: Manure Management

Mary Beatty has a confined feeding operation, and needs to implement a manure management plan. Mary would like to use the Soil Information Viewer to see if the field she is planning to use is suitable for manure spreading.
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Mary wants to use the Soil Information Viewer to do the following things:

Mark the set back distances from any dwellings and water bodies.
Find the total area of the potential field.

Process

Select the "Go To Online Soil Viewer" link.
Press the "Locate Township" button
- Select Township 051, Range 23, West of the 4th meridian. Press the "Locate" button.
- Select the "Zoom In" tool. Drag a box around sections 11 and part of the surrounding section.
- Select the "Pan" tool. Drag the south half of section 11 to the center of the mapping window.
- Adjust the scale of the mapping window to 1:10,000. The scale is in the bottom left corner of the screen. You may have to adjust your screen resolution before adjusting the scale.
Select the "Point Markup" tool. Click on a point approximately 200 feet from the edge of the water body on the east part of the field. In the sidebar, click "Submit"
A red star will appear. Click the "Measure Distance" tool . Measure from the center of the star to the edge of the water. If it's not close to 200 feet, click on the "Clear Selection tool and start over.
Continue to mark the setback distance around the water body, road allowance and farm site.
Select the "Measure Area" tool. Click around the boundary of the portion of the field available for manure spreading. The total area measured will appear at the top of the sidebar on the right.
Make a note of the total area measured by selecting the "Text Markup" tool. Click on the area of the map you would like the text to appear, and enter the total acres in the "Map Text" field on the right. You can also change the background colour to "none". Press OK.
To keep a copy of the map for record-keeping purposes, press the "Print" button .
Leave the Template/Quality and Scale fields at their default settings. In the Map Title field, type "Manure Management".
The map will be created as a PDF. Click on the "Open Map" link.
You can either save or print the resulting map.

Mary now has an image outlining the boundaries of the field to be used for manure spreading, as well as the total area available and set back distances. At this point, she may want to assess the site and soil characteristics. For more information on this process, see case study #1.

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The Alberta Soil Information Viewer is a collaboration between the Research Branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Agriculture Stewardship Division of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.

Alberta Soil Information Viewer: Manure Management

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