Slurry, farmyard manure and poultry manure are an inevitable consequence of livestock products generated from
housed animals. T
hese manures are recycled back to land for plants to use t
he nutrients t
hey contain. However, since t
hey contain inorganic N, microbially available sources of C and water, t
hey provide t
he essential substrates required for t
he microbial production of N
2O and CH
4. T
hese green
house gases can be produced and emitted at eac
h stage of t
he ‘manure management continuum’, being t
he livestock building, manure stores, manure treatment and manure spreading to land. T
he contribution t
hat manure management makes to total national agricultural emissions of N
2O and CH
4 vary, but can exceed 50 % in countries reporting to t
he UNFCCC in 2009. On farm management decisions interact wit
h environmental controls suc
h as temperature and water availability of key microbial processes (i.e., nitrification, denitrification, met
hanogenesis, CH
4 oxidation), affecting t
he magnitude of emissions from eac
h stage of t
he manure management continuum. We review t
he current understanding of
how manure management influences direct and indirect N
2O emissions and CH
4 emissions, introduce new data comparing direct N
2O emissions following spreading of a range of manure types by different met
hods, and
hig
hlig
ht some of t
he mitigations being considered by researc
hers and policy makers in developed and developing countries.
This article is part of the special issue entitled: Greenhouse Gases in Animal Agriculture – Finding a Balance between Food and Emissions, Guest Edited by T.A. McAllister, Section Guest Editors; K.A. Beauchemin, X. Hao, S. McGinn and Editor for Animal Feed Science and Technology, P.H. Robinson.