Composition of Pig Manures and Wastewaters under the Gan Qing Fen System in China

A large scale pig farm located in the North West of Beijing that applies the gan qing fen manure management system was selected and a continuous sampling of manures and wastewaters was performed from June to October 2009. Samples were collected once a week based on the pig production cycle, namely gestation, farrowing, weaning and fattening. Analysis of nutrients and heavy metals were determined by means of Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP). Total Nitrogen (TN) was determined by the Kjeldahl method. The main results showed that pig manures were characterized by high nutrients and heavy metals contents that might be due to the solid fraction separation from the liquid fraction under the gan qing fen manure management system. Further, piggery wastewaters were characterized by very low concentrations of nutrients and heavy metals as result of their dilution with flushing water mainly used for cleaning the pigsties. Manure and wastewaters samples from weaning pigs contained the highest concentrations of nutrients and heavy metals that could be due to high supplementation rates of these minerals in the weaner diets. In general, it seems that the manual daily collection of pig manures in the gan qing fen system is an efficient practice in order to maintain nutrient contents in pig manures but the use of flushing water should be reduced as it can lead to further environmental pollution.