Topic: oops, I mixed Lime & Chicken Pellets

[injeanuity]

Hi lottiers,

I'm new on here so go easy on me...
I think I made a booboo by putting lime on a bed that had chicken pellets in it for a couple of weeks.
Does anyone know if this will have adverse consequences for my Brassicas?

[manicscousers]

hope not, we've done the same  ;D
Bob Flowerdew reccommends chicken pellets as a good source of lime :)
sorry, forgot Welcome to a4a  ;D

[Bugloss2009]

the advice is not to put fertiliser down at the same time as lime as you can get a chemical reaction and lose some of your nitrogen to the air. I know this is true cus some old geezer on GW said so a couple of weeks ago  :D

[goodlife]

This chemical reaction between manure (not just a fertilizer) and lime will produce ammonia.. ::)..not nice for roots...but if you ground do have any crop growing on it....no probs....this rain that is on it's way should sort it out..give few weeks rest and things should be ok.... ;)

[cornykev]

I always put them together in the planting hole, as goodlife says your getting mixed up with manure.       ;D ;D ;D

[Vinlander]

Gypsum can lock away troublesome ammonia and also adds calcium but not alkalinity.

Extra calcium without extra alkalinity should be no problem so adding gypsum should be OK.

Experiment with pounded up plasterboard - can't really do any harm and much cheaper...

[artichoke]

So is the general idea that it doesn't do much harm? I did exactly this yesterday before reading the packet which says DON'T. And is poultry manure really a good source of lime anyway?

[goodlife]

"And is poultry manure really a good source of lime anyway?"

No...Thant's what the lime is for :)
I think in manure there is levels of urea and or ammonia so that is what the reaction with lime is warned for..but I haven't ever had problem with "dry" fertilizer and lime...but then again you dont add it by the bucket load neither ::)
I have once made manure&lime mistake ::)...plants started to looked yellow so I noticed something was wrong..I resulted heavy watering to flush soil around them and eventually everything returned to normal..lost couple of plants and others growth slowed down but did eventually catched up...

[Vinlander]

So is the general idea that it doesn't do much harm? I did exactly this yesterday before reading the packet which says DON'T. And is poultry manure really a good source of lime anyway?

Manure and lime is always a bad idea (makes ammonia), manure and gypsum is always a good idea (locks away ammonia).

Manure with lime AND gypsum should be much better than what you've got now - it's definitely worth a try but you need to get the gypsum to where the ammonia is making trouble - that could be tricky at this late date but if the plants haven't already had a fatal dose then it's still your best option...

Using vinegar is much trickier - you'd almost certainly get the balance wrong.