Hi
I have just had a load of manure delivered to my plot and wondered when the best time to use it would be. In the past I have spread it over my plot as soon as all the crops had finished and let it rest there throughout winter but others have left it and used it in the spring?
On my raised beds I spread the manure on in a thick layer, cover with black plastic, and leave until the spring. Worms do a lot of the mixing in, it just needs forking over in the spring. Making new beds I dig them over and mix mushroom compost in as I go, then treat with manure as above depending what I'm planning to grow there the following year. I also try and keep a bit of manure back to stack and use as a top up for very hungry plants like squash.
Quote from: bumble on September 09, 2008, 10:15:04
Hi
I have just had a load of manure delivered to my plot
Have you checked whether the manure is safe?
there's plenty of time for the manure to integrate into the soil if you apply it now. Personally I would advise against putting plastic over the soil during the winter because I prefer to let the soil get cold which helps kill off bugs. I tend to put down plastic covers sometime in February.
at the sports club where I had a cafe, the groundsmen always used to spread manure (on the roses) when it was time for the Ladies Bowls Championship. It wasn't so much the smell, as all the flies it attracted :D
It's the same when I spread well-decayed grass cuttings in warm weather. All these dung flies mysteriously appear. Where would dung flies hang out in central Birmingham?
So much manure is contaminated with aminopyralid herbicide that I would not touch it
Quote from: ceres on September 09, 2008, 10:55:40
Have you checked whether the manure is safe?
I've thought about getting manure from various places and whether it'd be free from this hormone weedkiller stuff- but how can I test it? Plant a potato/tomato plant?
Jon
There is no conclusive laboratory test and sowing a seed in it will only tell you if what is in the pot is contaminated or not. The way that the weedkiller gets into the manure makes it highly possible that in one large load, there is both contaminated and uncontaminated material.
You need to check with the supplier. If they don't know/can't/won't tell you that it's safe, my advice, for what it's worth, is don't use it. Read the previous threads on here before you make up your mind.
And sign the petition:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Aminopyralid (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Aminopyralid)
I'm almost tempted not to manure next year then... with the exception of the chickens poop that is. It'll be one of those things where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, ruined crops or poor crops being the outcome.
If anyone knows of a reliable brand of manure please let us know, or due to mixing of sources is there not likely to be a reliable source?
Petition already signed :)
I think the latest advice from actual gardeners (as opposed to big organisations who simply pass on advice & don't try it for themselves) is to spread the manure on the surface and rotovate and/or dig it in several times during the winter.
Alternatively, if you can be confident that your actual soil is free of weedkiller, plant green manures and dig them in, instead of using horse manure.
That's what we're advising people on our site to do, so do jump in and correct me if I'm wrong!
Quote from: Trevor_D on September 10, 2008, 17:19:54
I think the latest advice from actual gardeners (as opposed to big organisations who simply pass on advice & don't try it for themselves) is to spread the manure on the surface and rotovate and/or dig it in several times during the winter.
I don't really understand that Trevor. I'm aware that the advice for disposing of manure known to be contaminated, if you don't have pasture to spread it on, is to dig it into areas where you won't plant 'sensitive' crops. And the RHS and Dow advice for speeding up the clearance of the weedkiller from areas manured last season is to dig over and rotovate as many times as possible over the winter. I haven't heard/read anyone saying to take a new supply of manure, dig or rotovate it in and if the manure was contaminated, it won't matter because you will have made it safe? I think that's very bad advice wherever it came from. It's exactly what I did last year and look what happened!
Sorry - I obviously didn't explain myself very well.
I wasn't suggesting bringing in more manure; but a lot of sites will have manure already that needs dealing with somehow. In trawling through blogs & chat-rooms, I've come across several gardeners (or perhaps it's the same one under different guises!) who are spreading it on unused ground & rotovating it in and claiming that it seems to be working.
On our site, we're in a slightly different situation, in that the stables are actually on-site, so our manure is free. Our stable-owner can actually spread it on pasture-land, as he also rents several nearby fields. But it's extra work for him and several of our plot-holders are loath to see manure having to be "wasted" in this way. We have actually put a ban on using the manure until we can get more advice, which is why I've been trying to look for ways of dealing with it.
And I still haven't been able to get any straight answers from the RHS, etc about green manures, which is why I've suggested using them only on ground known to be uncontaminated in case extra green material dug into contaminated soil merely feeds the weedkiller further.
Interestingly, I went to our Borough's allotments meeting last night and there were two comments from people there who obviously knew the science: one that agro-chemicals were unlikely to be killed by heat, so mere composting - at whatever temperature you can achieve - is useless; the other that the chemical would eventually leach into the soil & thence into the water-course (although how long this would take is an unknown).
hi from what i have picked up from also trawling the net re: this subject, is that if you are going to use the rotovating method then you have to regularly rotovate at about 4 - 6wks intervals for a time scale of 9 - 12 months at least. i think the assumption is this assists the soil microbes in breaking down the weedkiller quickly an evenly.
here is a link explaining what i found
http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/ (http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/)
Ah, right! With you now!
Yes, if you have manure and you don't know if it's contaminated or not and you don't have acres of pasture to spread it on, a way to deal with it is to dig/rotovate it into areas you don't intend planting, or at least not 'sensitive' plants. The weedkiller needs the soil-borne organisms to be neutralised so digging it in provides the exposure to those organisms.
I asked the RHS about green manure. They don't recommend sowing green manure into contaminated areas, not because of feeding the weedkiller further, but because adding more material into the soil to be broken down will slow down the rotting down process.
When I met the lady from the RHS I asked her about leaching into water supplies. I was particularly worried because on our site we have no mains water. We manually pump our water up from the water table which is at approx. 12-18 feet. She replied that there is no risk to our water supply. When the rotting down plant material releases the weedkiller, it is inactivated in around 3 weeks by the soil organisms. The quantities of active weedkiller that might survive and get down as far as the water table will be minute and hugely diluted once they get there. The risk with water courses as I understand it is of spraying the weedkiller near an open water course as it is highly harmful to aquatic species. The first version of the weedkiller label precautions was withdrawn to make more stringent the precautions for spraying near water courses.
I still have a feeling of impending doom in terms of how many people will be hit next year because of these misconceptions like if you stack it/compost it/let it rot/etc. etc.
Jonny
If you can find a farmer who does not buy in feed and who will tell you what he sprays with you will probably be OK. Stables, in my view, are more risky because the feed is likely to come from multiple sources that can't be traced.
Quote from: thifasmom on September 11, 2008, 16:37:57
here is a link explaining what i found
http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/ (http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/)
I don't think the advice on that website is particularly helpful.
green manures would always make a good substitute and so much easier to handle but the trouble is land often doesn't come available at the right time to sow and get good germination - I use horse manure only on spud, squash, runner bean plots and use crop rotation to suit this
Quote from: ceres on September 11, 2008, 17:08:50
Quote from: thifasmom on September 11, 2008, 16:37:57
here is a link explaining what i found
http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/ (http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/)
I don't think the advice on that website is particularly helpful.
why is that ceres i thought he explained the rotovating method quite well, was there something else you found to be unhelpful?
Quote from: thifasmom on September 11, 2008, 16:37:57
hi from what i have picked up from also trawling the net re: this subject, is that if you are going to use the rotovating method then you have to regularly rotovate at about 4 - 6wks intervals for a time scale of 9 - 12 months at least. i think the assumption is this assists the soil microbes in breaking down the weedkiller quickly an evenly.
here is a link explaining what i found
http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/ (http://www.allotment.org.uk/garden-diary/273/aminopyralid-contaminated-manure/)
That makes sense. Every time you dig or plough land, you stir in oxygen, leading to a more rapid breakdown of organic material.