Organic or Not Organic

[agongos]

My hay supplier fertilizes his hay with something? My sheep and horses eat this hay, and I compost the manure they produce. I apply this beautiful composted manure to my vegetable garden. It is completely broken down and looks like potting soil! If I use organic seed and keep my veggies free of pesticides and fertilizer am I producing organic produce?

[rainbowgardener]

Indeed....

I don't know what the laws are and to be certified organic there are a lot of detailed regulations.

But to me, even if they sprayed poison (pesticides) on the hay, by the time it has been eaten, digested, turned into manure, composted, the pesticides have been bio-remediated and no longer exist.

That might have been different in the DDT days, DDT seems to be very persistent in the environment, but presuming they are using legal things on the hay....

[applestar]

Ah. But don't forget that herbicide which passes through the horses' (most inefficient digestive system) gut unchanged and caused a havoc in Britain a couple of years ago when the manure composted or not was used for growing vegs -- isolated cases were also reported in U.S. last year.

The herbicide is used to treat the field BEFORE seeds are spread t grow the hay, so are not always reported or known to have affected the harvested hay....

[The Helpful Gardener]

AS raises a good point; best to know exactly what we are talking about...

BUT...

the process of composting is one of breaking down and reconstituting. If we are truly just talking about fertilizer for the grass, then there is likely little issue for the end product. Certainly the timeline RBG outlined is a safe bet. I would certainly think of my produce as organic in the circumstances you outlined.

HG

[agongos]

.No herbicide is used on the hay.

[Tonythegardener]

There were many of us organic growers in UK affected by the aminopyralid herbicide. It affected potatoes particularly badly. Used on grass, which it did not affect, it was supposed to be effective for at least two years. Cows and horses ate the grass and we used the manure on our allotment gardens. The effect of this herbicide on our allotments is only now beginning to wear off. It is worrying to realise that chemicals like this can pass through the food chain with little monitoring from the people that produce the chemicals. We were told by Dow AgroScience that our produce would be edible but we all had to think hard about whether we were going to eat it. Aminopyralid herbicide was banned for a while in the UK but now it can be used again. The government has published instructions that say affected manure cannot leave the farm. I am just wondering if it is on bedding straw that is moved to farms and stables not using aminopyralid herbicides. They can sell us their manure but it will still be contaminated. A lot of us are not using cow and horse manure any more.