Horse Manure

I have a ready supply of horse manure, but do not like the weeds; how would you mulch it, and for how many years?

Weeds are a problem, and you need to turn it once a week for a year.

One year to compost it. I turn my piles more infrequently. Just need to keep it cooking to kill the weeds.

Mulch, or compost David?

De-wormers are another issue. Horses here routinely get it. I like to keep my soil worms alive. They do great work for me, help with my excellent tilth. Seeds are normal in manure. If you high temperature compost, you'll kill them. I prefer low-temperature composting because most of the seeds are from plants I want, and let go to seed. Spreading compost is planting. I don't mono-crop. Nor do I till.

The longer since the manure was produced that you wait to use it, the more N loss you incur. Low-temperature composting takes me several months, depending on time of year. I make up for the N loss by using more manure.

You might remember a thread awhile back about herbicides in hay that were still active after a trip through the animal. It is well-documented. I posted a link to an article put up by North Carolina about how to protect your crops from that. Hay in my area doesn't normally have broad-leaf herbicides, but another reason to delay getting the manure near plants you want. Horse people here simply buy hay, don't normally inquire what might have been sprayed. Not a problem for the horse.

I've been composting horse manure, the only manure readily available here, for almost two decades, always plan for at least a year before I get any around my crops. The weed seeds I don't kill in composting aren't an issue for me, small plants to go on the compost pile, before they set seed.

Harvesting all year works great, and not buying any chemicals suits me fine. In fact, I buy very few seeds, only those that I don't want to risk not getting from volunteers.

They used a lot of horse manure in mushroom houses some here in MD and PA. Hal

Button mushrooms Hal? Would the problems some veggie growers had be a problem for mushrooms? I'm only growing shiitake currently, shockingly easy to grow.

The horse stables around here would love it if those commercial mushroom growers would show up with a large truck on a regular basis. Last time I hauled off 7 tons of manure, they asked if I'd come back next week. My compost needs are not that large.

I'd like to try other manure, but horse is what's readily available here. I'm not having a problem, other than finding a source that isn't half wood chips/shavings.

BTW, "More Other Homes and Garbage", a free download, has a chapter on designer compost. If you know exactly what you need, you can plan it. But you'll need more than just the horse manure, weeds, and kitchen scraps that keep me going. With my low temperature composting, the piles don't look like much of anything. I've had two graduates of the Master Gardner program standing on a compost pile, and not recognize it. But unlike me, they were chemical growers who declined when I offered to drop off a load of manure for them.

I prefer as little input from me as possible, both money and labor. Mostly, I make compost and harvest. Then shock visitors when I jam my hand almost to the wrist into a bed that hasn't been tilled for 10 years. It's no longer the subsoil I started with. Plants are happy.

David I used to get large amounts of horse manure from several stables. With all of the bedding in it you just need to pile or windrow it and it will start to compost. You need to get the piles at least 4-5 feet tall to have enough volume to generate the heat you need to sterilize the weed seeds. I tried to turn the pile/windrow about every month to forty days. The manure usually was ready in six months in the summer and 8-9 months over the winter.

Now for some of VATom's assertions.

1) The wormers in horse manure will not past though the composting process so damage to earth warms is a ORGANIC fable. It has been shown as that by several university studies.

2) The danger from herbicide carry through in manure is greatly exaggerated as well. There was ONE study published stating that as fact. Then when you looked at the study it used HUGE amounts of manure right at the base of plants to show any reaction. There are several other studies that show it is NOT an issue when normal application rates are used. Also the composting heat destroys 90% of any chemicals commonly used in hay production but once again the organic crowd pushed the carry through as FACT!!!!

Now some nutritional facts about compost. It is not the wonder plant food many give it credit for. Most horse manure is low in nitrogen as there is a high percentage of organic matter in bedding. The use of wood chips is the main reason I stopped fooling with the horse manure. The chips are slow to break down into a used able product. Too many of them are made out of hard woods and do not work well in composting.

Horse manure will help build organic matter. It takes large amounts to do this. So it is more practical in production of specialty crops like produce. Row crop production takes more per acre than most people have access to. The cost to turn horse manure into a useable product is not cheap so the end product has an actual higher high cost per unit of fertilizer than commercial fertilizer. So if you want due it for say your garden as an soil builder than that would not too hard. For replacing much of your fertilizer needs in crop production it would take huge amounts to gain much with.

This is for my garden, about 20x40, I want to keep organic material built up.

Still have your head in the sand JD? Not my "assertions", I have no bad experience. As far as fertilizer needs, my crops need, and get, nothing but compost. To which I add some subsoil.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/29/food.agriculture

In part:
"Aminopyralid, which is found in several Dow products, the most popular being Forefront, a herbicide, is not licensed to be used on food crops and carries a label warning farmers using it not to sell manure that might contain residue to gardeners."

"Problems with the herbicide emerged late last year, when some commercial potato growers reported damaged crops. In response, Dow launched a campaign within the agriculture industry to ensure that farmers were aware of how the products should be used. Nevertheless, the herbicide has now entered the food chain. Those affected are demanding an investigation and a ban on the product. They say they have been given no definitive answer as to whether other produce on their gardens and allotments is safe to eat."

Dow knows. Nothing new here, this has been going on for many years.

Which is why North Carolina Extension Service posted the warning, and how to protect yourself. http://content.ces.ncsu.edu/herbicide-carryover.pdf
Herbicide Carryover

I have several high end stables near me. I don't compost it at all. I use it as mulch after planting and let it rot down till I plow it all under in the fall. It's mostly shavings due to the horse people seeing an apple in the stall they're complaining. The help cleans stalls several times a day.
I don't have much weed problems as they are fed alfalfa, Bermuda grass and feed. These horse people freak out if there's any weeds in the feed.

I pile mine up, add AG lime, leafs, grass clippings, a little dirt and let it sit for a year. Mix it with front loader when weeds sprout. I use mine in garden, flower beds, and potting soil for greenhouse, no weed issue to speak of. By the time I use mine, all the road apples and smell is gone. It looks like dirt. Sometimes I even add a few wood chips, trash off garden in fall when everything is done for and weeds we pull from flower beds. Anything organic gets put in my mulch pile. Let it rot for a while.

David,
I dig 12 inch post holes 2 ft deep. Only fill the hole with last years horse poo/mulch. My tomatoes were 10 ft long last year, home made mircle grow. Why mulch the weeds? I just mulch the holes the plants go in. Only water the holes to. Can't see watering where the weed grow.

Hey its just them crazy Organic Guys over at Dow spreading rumors(LOL)

DOW- The company that gave us Agent Orange.

If all the weeds come from the seeds in horse manure, why is it that when you seed a field down, that for the first three weeks you have more weeds than crop, when there had been no horse manure on the ground in the last thirty years?