Who Said Turning Over the Dung Heap Again Eh
Once, when many families had their own vegetable gardens and compost heaps, there were enough of takers for equus caballus manure.
Horses doing their business organization on suburban streets were rarely a problem, because enough of householders were prepared to race out with a shovel to collect the bountiful baubles.
Horse manure contains plenty of fibre, making information technology an excellent soil conditioner. Withal, it doesn't rate correct at the top of the Pantheon of Poo. That honor belongs to chicken manure — indeed, whatever bird droppings.
Emeritus Professor of Soil Scientific discipline John Walker says bird debris are peak of the heap for good reason. Horses — indeed all mammals — produce both urine and dung. Mammals secrete most of their nitrogen, potassium and sulphur through their pee, meaning their debris are almost always scarce in these key elements.
Birds, on the other hand, excrete through 1 hole only, meaning all these essential exhaust nutrients are rolled into 1 not bad production.
Horse dung may have its shortcomings, only information technology has also received some bad printing. Sadly, social club at present moves manner likewise fast for the humble horse poo.
The scenario is all also common: A grateful horse owner who is non in a position to use harrows finds a friend to accept away a few bags of freshly collected equus caballus debris. They dig it into their garden, then mutter to the equus caballus lover a few months later that it was full of weeds. They rarely come back for more.
Through all this, nobody appears to have told horses that demand for their nifty nuggets has fallen away. They just go along on producing them at an average of 15 or then dollops a day. This has given rise to what economists phone call a overabundance. And, to utilize business concern parlance again, at that place's naught worse than an oversupply in a bearish market.
Horse dung has been much maligned because people are bypassing the ane crucial stride that every keen vegetable gardener knows about: Composting.
Composting is the procedure whereby naturally occurring microbes break downward organic matter. A perfect compost is a soil-similar material rich in nutrients and full of roughage which, when added to the garden, improves soil structure and plant health.
The disquisitional thing is overcoming the weed problem. Yeah, seeds do pass intact through a equus caballus's digestive system and will grow if given the opportunity. No cocky-respecting weed seed would ignore the opportunity provided by anyone who digs them straight into the soil.
The solution is heat. Your complete composter is aiming to fry those pesky seeds. One of the byproducts of composting is heat, and, if enough is created for long enough, it will impale any seeds and pathogens, providing you lot with a weed-free compost.
Professor Walker says 80deg Celsius is considered the marking at which you lot'll accomplish this. However, he says it is not always like shooting fish in a barrel to achieve, and some trial and fault may be required to go your composting on a roll.
So what exercise y'all demand to do?
Create a heap that's got the right remainder of material, moisture, and whatever added nutrients to encourage healthy growth in the number of micro-organisms that will compost it. Crucially, it needs to exist big enough for the heat produced past this process to become to a critical temperature, and stay there for two, even three weeks. Y'all've also got to allow air to go to the heart and then your composting volition occur with air (aerobically) and not without air (anaerobically).
If your heap develops an unpleasant olfactory property, yous should turn information technology immediately.
The unpleasant smell tin can attract flies that may lay eggs in your heap.
The usual cause is overwatering, or possibly you lot didn't pay enough attention to the layering of the cloth when you built it. The oestrus generated in turning the heap should be plenty to kill any fly larvae.
If everything goes well with your heap, you should be creating pathogen-gratuitous compost. However, to be condom, you lot should always wear rubber gloves and a mask to reduce the chances of inhaling anything unpleasant. Better safe than sorry.
Let's presume you're not actually wanting to invest in building or buying compost bins, nor be too scientific about how much fertiliser to add. After all, we're making compost, not baking a cake!
Pick an area well away from anywhere where odour might be a problem. No neighbour wants a compost heap under their kitchen window. Having said that, a well-congenital heap should not generate an unpleasant olfactory property.
You lot're going to build a heap with a base of operations about 2m beyond. Don't put any covering on the ground, every bit worms and microbes will be prevented from entering your heap from the earth. Ideally, yous need room beside it for a second, third, fifty-fifty fourth heap, for reasons we'll explain later.
If you've got some one-time netting around, grade 2m rings with that to comprise your heap. You lot'll become a ameliorate-shaped pile that fashion, with a bigger center, which is where the greatest heat will accumulate.
Outset shoveling in your horse manure. You're aiming for a concluding acme of over a metre. You lot need not build it all at once, simply recall that the high temperatures you lot need won't be accomplished until your pile has a decent heart.
Build an fifty-fifty layer of about 15cm. If it'south dry, get your hose and spray h2o on until the dung is clammy, but not soaking wet. If information technology's as well dry, the composting process volition be slowed and the big heat build-upwards you need just won't happen.
Get some general-purpose fertilizer, preferably with a good for you level of nitrogen, and sprinkle a handful over the dung. (Professor Walker's personal favourite amidst general fertilisers is Nitrophoska Bluish Extra). Eliminate fertiliser at your peril: A shortage of nitrogen is a common cause of slow or ineffective composting.
Now you need a layer of dark-green matter. Lawn clippings are great, but y'all can apply leaves, hedge clippings, vegetable scraps, old hay and the similar. This layer should be a little deeper, as the final heap needs to be at to the lowest degree fifty per cent green matter.
And then repeat the layer of horse manure and a sprinkling of fertilizer, paying attention to the moisture content equally you lot get.
If you're tempted not to add whatsoever fertiliser, deport in mind that any deficiencies in your soil will show in your institute matter too every bit your equus caballus dung, and, ultimately, your compost. Information technology's a gamble to break that cycle.
If you're putting in onetime stable bedding fabric, you've scored a bonus. Independent in this volition be urine, which is rich in potassium, nitrogen and sulphur, then y'all may not need to correct for any deficiencies. However, if the stable material is sawdust or woods shavings, these apply large amounts of nitrogen in breaking down and will nearly always create a deficiency. This being the instance, add a rich nitrogen-based fertilizer every bit you go.
Some people like to add together sprinklings of lime to their compost heap. This lowers the acidity, creating a better environment for the microbes to multiply. Others throw in a few shovelfuls of dirt to seed the heap with the right naturally occurring soil microbes
Horse manure, being quite light and fibrous, will help encourage all-important airflow through the pile. The estrus generated by your pile rises and this encourages libation fresh air to be sucked in from the base of operations. Some people aid air to go to the heart of their heap by drilling holes in a length of PVC pipage and placing information technology upright in the centre of their heap.
An even simpler way is to get a strong stick or crowbar and brand three or four ventilation holes. Run across if you tin push right to the lesser, work information technology around a little, and withdraw it carefully.
If all goes well, the centre of your heap should kickoff composting rapidly. If the process seems sluggish, chances are your heap is lacking in either nitrogen, water, or both.
If possible, cover your heap with sometime sacks or equus caballus covers. These volition help retain heat, go along it from drying out, and prevent your heap from getting too wet from the pelting.
Correct moisture is critical for success. Also much and you run the risk of your heap staying too cool and producing gloop. Too little and the whole process will be slowed and, over again, y'all'll take besides fiddling heat. If you lot can option up a scattering and clasp water out, your heap is besides clammy. If information technology's getting also dry, remove your covers and add water. Some trial and fault will be needed to get it just right.
By now, your heap will be composting furiously in the eye, with air-breathing microbes working day and night on your behalf.
The outside won't be composting well-nigh every bit well, as the rut cannot build up the same.
You thus demand to plow the heap 3 or four weeks subsequently you built it. This is why you've placed it somewhere with space abreast information technology.
You lot shovel the heap across, ensuring that the outside of the quondam heap forms the inside of the new i. While doing this, make sure the textile is non also dry, and add water if necessary. The cloth should now be much darker and showing clear signs of breaking down.
Become your stick or crowbar and create new ventilation holes, cover it again, and the process will go along in earnest. About half dozen weeks later, your magnificent compost will be ready to unveil to the world.
The results will exist even improve if you lot turn the heap a 3rd time, at intervals of three or 4 weeks, only if you provide the correct mix and conditions, yous should get useable compost with one turning. Essentially, the more times yous tin can turn it at these intervals, the better the end product. If you've got a tractor and saucepan, y'all've got no excuse.
If you can't use your compost straight away, continue it covered and a little damp.
So what should y'all do with your compost? Let your friends marvel at your creation of odour-free, fibre-rich living earth. Many volition be so impressed they'll desire some for their ain gardens, but only after they've gathered some of the raw fabric from your paddocks for the adjacent batch!
Finally, a reminder that the dung you lot accept off a paddock is gradually robbing the soil of its nutrients. Don't forget to fertilise, fifty-fifty if you lease your paddocks. Otherwise, it's your horse you lot're shortchanging.
Is equus caballus manure total of weeds?
The question is then of import, that scientists in the United States have been given $NZ150,000 to investigate the question.
About people who accept ever dug fresh horse manure into their garden, only to be confronted past a sea of weeds, might consider this money wasted. Just the question is of import, with more 700,000 horses a twelvemonth crossing into national parks each year in California alone.
Authorities in the US are worried that horses taken into parklands and forests for rides might be responsible for the spread of invasive weeds. Business concern well-nigh this growing problem is such that some states already require horse owners to feed their animals expensive certified weed-free feeds before using public lands.
A California university has started a year-long scientific study to become some answers. The question is non whether weeds and grass sprout from horse dung — residuum assured they do — but rather whether the invasive weeds that pose the greatest threat, such as yellow star thistle, grow from the dung.
Preliminary findings betoken that horses may not exist as big a culprit every bit start thought. Biology students collected equus caballus-manure samples from paddocks and national parks. They mixed them with weed-free soil and left them in pots in a university glasshouse free of weed contamination.
Of ninety pots, 34 plants germinated in 21 of them. The most common establish was ryegrass, but several other found species were identified. Even so, none of them was on California'south list of noxious and invasive weeds.
Regardless of the final results, expected early adjacent twelvemonth, halting the spread of weeds is considered nigh incommunicable in any case, with seeds able to exist carried by the wind, and eaten and excreted by birds. They can also travel on creature fur, and be carried into wilderness areas on vehicle or mountainbike tyres, or on the soles of boots.
First published on Horsetalk.co.nz on June 25, 2006
Source: https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2012/09/28/horse-manure-easy-guide-to-composting/
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