Soil impaction, horse manure, chicken manure

16 years ago

Hey folks, this forum rocks! (well sandy loams!)

I have a few naggin questions.

I don't want to compact my soil so I want to stay off of it and not till when its wet. However, its been raining about once a week for the last month or so. I'm worried its going to keep this up the entire spring. How long do I need to let the garden area dry?

My soil prep so far is this:

I've planted a green crop of winter wheat over a mulched and tilled area. Its about 3 inches high right now.

As amendments I have:

1) two pick up trucks full of horse manure/wood chips from a local stable. When I got it, it was steaming on the center, but since bringing it home, its now quit being warm (its currently in 2 piles each roughly 3x3x3).

2) oak leaf chicken litter. Some of the oak leaves are broken down, some arent. the base of the coop run is playground sand. I planned on using this as mulch after planting my seedlings.

3) lime

Based on my county extension soil test, they suggested adding lime and a "side dressing" of fertilizer. What do they mean by side dressing?

April 1 is my last frost date, and I wonder when I should go ahead and prepare my beds.

thanks

propofol

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Comments (5)

Kimmsr
16 years ago
When you can get onto the soil to work it depends on how well it drains. A simple way to determine your soils tilth, workability, is to take a handful of the soil, squeeze it tightly, and while it is balled up poke it with a finger from the other hand. If that soil then falls apart it is workable, it it stays in that ball it is not workable. The soil I saw when I was in Memphis is red clay and most of what I saw lacked sufficient organic matter so the green manure crop will help as will the manure, but I would think that this is still too early to think about working your soil, mid March maybe. The green manure crop should grow to about knee high before being cut down.
Side dressing some fertilizer means placing that fertilizer along side the plants after they are planted. If row cropping is practiced you would, carefully, dribble some fertilizer between the rows of plants.
leslies
16 years ago
You could spread the manure now and let it sit for the next month. Turn it in when you turn the soil in a month.

I expect to be able to dig in my (clay soil) garden by mid-March, but some parts of the garden dry out much more quickly than others. So when I go out to work in the yard, I just stick the trowel or fork in and see how things look. If the soil that comes up isn't sticky or gloppy, it's OK to work it.

Whether you need lime depends on what you want to grow. Many, many plants are happy in soil that's on the acidic side. I tend to think that lime recommendations assume you're growing grass.
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As I stated in my original post. I can give you some numbers if you're interested but I won't post actual documents. Sorry, it's a legal thing. By the way, you may be on to something regarding the diet but my gut feeling is that differences in diet will only go so far. Their physiology is very different from cows, horses, etc. (primarily how their body uses water, which I'm guessing affects solute concentrations in their tissues and waste). I could be wrong but I'd be willing to bet that it's going to be salty regardless. I'm also taking into account the fact that zoos will usually try to mimic the diet that their species typically has access to. Anyway, I have averaged out some results and here are a few of the highlights. The salinity level of the camel manure typically came in around 30 to 35 dS/m. For comparison, a soil salinity level of 3.0 dS/m is considered elevated and could cause some plants to start showing foliage burn and reduced vigor. (Another fun factoid I'll throw in here just for kicks ECw of sea water is around 40 dS/m or so.) Of course, you would be amending with the stuff rather than planting directly into it so let's explore that a little more. Let's say you were amending a sandy loam soil at a typical compost rate of 4 cu. yds. per 1000 sq. ft., tilled to a depth of 6 inches. (to get an organic content of approximately 20% by volume.) That would raise your salinity by about 10 dS/m, which would be on top of whatever the salinity level in the soil was before you started amending. 10 dS/m alone would be enough to cause most plants to show burning and stunting. Many plants would just plain die. Also consider the fact that about 70% of the salinity level is coming from soluble sodium. (around 250 milliequivalents per liter) Also, soluble chloride was found to be around 200 to 300 milliequivalents per liter. The high sodium and chloride values brings up the specific toxicity issues I described above. Also the abundant sodium is not balanced by calcium and magnesium and you end up with an SAR of around 35 or so. (An SAR of 6 is considered elevated) and use of such a high sodium / low calcium and magnesium material could bring about an elevated SAR in the soil, which can impede soil structure and water infiltration. I also noticed something else that I'd forgotten about. The boron values in the samples I'm looking at come in at about 5 to 6 parts per million (ppm) in saturation extract. If used at the 4 cu. yd. rate, this would be likely to bump the boron level above the threshold at which a broad range of plants start to show boron toxicity symptoms (burning of foliage and poor growth performance). The really fun part about boron is that it does not leach readily and, consequently, correcting an elevated boron level in the soil is particularly challenging. Could you use it at a very low rate and avoid the problems? Well sure, but like I said before, a rate low enough to avoid the problems would provide very little benefit compared to other materials. Of course, maybe all camel manures aren't equal but with the information I have, I would stick with something less exotic.
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Hi pawtails, I regularly use well rotted manure in my garden and have had no problems with weeds. Of course these come in bags and have been processed by garden soil companies. My understanding is that as the manure starts to compost, it heats up to a degree that kills off the weeds and emerging weeds that come with it. I was just puzzled when you mentioned you had trouble with 7 year old manure. My thinking is that manure is well rotted by the following year and in the succeeding years if that manure isn't used weeds could easily grow back on them. I've watched a show that seemed very informative on the processes of such manure. This however involved the use of earthworms to further process the manure. Stll, what was shown was that the poo was piled high and you could see that it was hot and heating up with the bacteria being very active there. It was watered down every now and then to continue promoting the composting process and necessary to prevent spontaneous fires. It was also turned regularly which would disturb and kill off emerging weed seedlings. Maybe too mix in your hay into the pile. Remember that hay contains seeds. when ready for use, screen the manure. You can use thermometers to ensure you get it very hot. Properly processed poo shouldn't have any odor. If you get it right, you might be able to make a side business and sell poo compost.
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The best advice can only come from someone who knows what your current soil is like and what it lacks. But here are some differences between the amendments. Mushroom manure adds organic material without a lot of nutrients, so you might say it is fairly "nutrient neutral". It would be good in most soils, particularly if they are either sandy or full of clay and in need of additional organic material. You would then add other amendments or fertilizer to balance any nutrient deficiencies in the soil. The risks are low and it is helpful for many soil types. Lifestock manure when well composted also adds organic matter but is also high in nitrogen. So it is like adding compost + a high nitrogen fertilizer. It is a good choice if you need the nitrogen. But the manure has to be well composted before you add it to the soil. If you add horse or cow manure directly to the soil the ammonia and salts that are released as it begins to decompose can be too much for your plants and burn them. It can take 9 months to a year before the manure has composted down to the point where it is safe. So find out how it was produced. Chicken manure is livestock manure on steroids. It is higher in nitrogen, which can be a plus if that is a deficiency you need to address. Again, it has to be composted (or "aged") before it is safe to add to an active garden. In short, if you don't know your soil shortcomings, mushroom manure is always the safe bet - especially if you are going to use a specific rose fertilizer to supply nutrients. If you are going to fertilize anyway, then the potent livestock or chicken manure may be overkill.
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bcomplx
16 years ago
Many garden centers sell inexpensive pH test kits. They're fun, and simplify all that pH stuff. Your manure and organic matter (and the life forms they support) will nudge it toward neutral over time, and it can be interesting to watch. Fall is the best time for serious liming.

Permanent pathways provide habitat for earthworms, ground beetles, etc, and give you some access regardless of the weather. For temporary access to some areas, you also can lay boards on the ground and stand on the boards.

If you planned to use your wheat as a cover crop, you'll need to take it down 2-3 weeks before you need the space, or you can pull it up and let it dry into mulch, or compost it. In mild winter climates, actively growing wheat does not go down without a little bit of a fight.

Back to the permanent pathways. You can sow them with legumes and well-behaved grasses, and mow them to make mulch for the beds or rows next to them. It's a cool system. Picture it -- next year, a ribbon of crimson clover laced with blue bachelor buttons leads you to your beautiful [fill in blank] and you feel so happy!

Here is a link that might be useful: my website
Kimmsr
16 years ago
Most plants grow best with a soil pH in the 6.2 to 6.8 range, when most all nutrients in the soil are most readily available, but that can be buffered some by sufficient levels of organic matter in the soil.
You could plunk manure on your soil and then smell the nutrients evaporating to the atmosphere, that distinctive odor of manure, which is a large waste of those nutrients. Far better is to compost the manure to stabilize those nutrients so they are not simply wasted.
Belgianpup
16 years ago
Tilling your soil when it's too wet will eliminate a lot of the nitrogen that you have labored to add to it. The rain is making that wheat grown, both above and under the soil. I read where one farmer had a lot of land to plow, so he started too early and lost 3 or 4 years worth of soil improvement. It's just not worth taking the chance starting too soon.

When an agricultural info source advises side-dressing, they are advocating that you feed the plants. What you should be doing is balancing the soil so the soil can feed the plants. Organically-enriched and properly limed soil will feed the plants all through the growing season as they need it. Side-dressing is force-feeding your plants. This method seems to be a leftover from the slow-dying chemical fertilization methods. If you make a point of feeding your children good, nutritious meals, you wouldn't want your neighbor sneaking over and handing them fatty McDonald's burgers and fries with extra salt.

Sue

Soil impaction, horse manure, chicken manure

Comments (5)

Kimmsr

leslies

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