“IdaNose” sizes up Idaho dairy odors

A dozen trained dairy-odor assessors are putting their noses to noteworthy work: they are helping UI’s Ron Sheffield make scientific sense of the controversial scents wafting from southern Idaho’s dairy farms.

Four times, a team of eight will sniff the air next to—and 50 and 200 meters downwind from—32 randomly selected dairies between Idaho’s western and eastern borders. The dairies represent small and large open-lot operations and manure-flushing and manure-scraping free-stall facilities. Assessors, nicknamed “IdaNose,” estimate each odor’s intensity and select terms to describe it—from the appreciative “humic” to the vilifying “rancid.” They record the same perceptions while dairy manure, compost, or wastewater are land-applied.

Yes, it is a tough job and, yes, somebody’s got to do it, says Sheffield, UI Extension waste management engineer in Twin Falls: No one can interpret the impacts of dairy odors on humans more meaningfully than other humans.

Sheffield will compare the odor panelists’ findings with laboratory samples of odors, manures, and wastewater taken concurrently with the sniff tests. His goal: To understand which practices are linked to which odorous emissions. Sheffield will present his findings to the Idaho Odor Rule Committee, coordinated by the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, which may use them next summer in establishing odor-detection methods and management thresholds. Contact Sheffield at rons@uidaho.edu.

--Marlene Fritz

© 2003 University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.