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ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 4, 2025)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Maryland Department of Agriculture<\/strong>\u00a0is reminding farmers that the winter ban on spreading manure, food processing residuals (FPRs), and other nutrient sources on cropland begins on\u00a0December 16, 2025<\/strong>. Farmers can resume spreading these materials on\u00a0March 1, 2026<\/strong>, as long as they follow their nutrient management plan recommendations and ensure that fields are not saturated, snow-covered, or hard-frozen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Maryland\u2019s nutrient management regulations prohibit spreading of manure, food processing residuals, and other nutrient sources on fields during winter due to the increased risk of runoff into local waterways. Farmers are required to store liquid manure generated on their farms in designated structures. The department is authorized to assist livestock farmers in preventing overflows from these storage structures and in minimizing impacts on water quality.\u00a0If there is a potential overflow, farmers must contact the Nutrient Management Program at 410-841-5959 for emergency authorization before any spreading occurs.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Temporary field stockpiling of \u201cstackable\u201d poultry litter and other qualifying organic nutrient sources is permitted if the moisture content is 60% or less. However, farmers are not allowed to apply stackable organic nutrient sources to fields during the winter months under any conditions. For concerns about storage, questions regarding the regulations, or guidance on storage requirements, farmers should contact their\u00a0regional nutrient management specialist<\/a>. For more information, please visit the department\u2019s Nutrient Management Program\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n ###\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ANNAPOLIS, MD (December 4, 2025)\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Maryland Department of Agriculture\u00a0is reminding farmers that the winter ban on spreading manure, food processing residuals (FPRs), and other nutrient sources on cropland begins on\u00a0December 16, 2025. Farmers can resume spreading these materials on\u00a0March 1, 2026, as long as they follow their nutrient management plan recommendations and ensure that fields Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29489,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29488\/revisions\/29489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}