Impact of Dairy Manure Processing Using Polyacrylamide on Antibiotic-Resistant Bacterial Level

This study investigates levels of bacteria through population indicators as well as the levels of antibiotic-resistance bacteria in dairy manure. Although overall bacteria levels may be reduced during manure processing, it is of interest whether changes in management practices could lead to increased levels of antibiotic-resistance bacteria, which are becoming more prevalent in agricultural soils, groundwater, and surface water. Appropriate manure treatments are needed not only to reduce the potential risk of exporting antibiotic-resistant bacteria to an environment, but also reduce antibiotic-resistant bacteria exposure to animals if processed water is recycled. Results from this research revealed manure separation under relatively low speed centrifuge with 100ppm polyacrylamide (PAM) emulsion addition reduced bacteria indicators population such as total coliforms and Escherichia coli (E. coli) significantly in the liquid stream compared to no PAM added. However, the percentages of antibiotic-resistant isolates in liquid stream after centrifuge with PAM were higher compared to raw manure and no PAM added. Antibiotic resistance (cephalosporin, florfenicol, penicillin, or tetracycline) was observed or 65.38% of bacterial isolates in manure from a large dairy farm in Wisconsin and 39.29% of isolates demonstrated multidrug resistance. The results from this study strongly suggest that appropriate manure treatment is essential in order to help minimize the abundance of antibiotic resistance in our water environment.