When is manure considered ready-to-use?

[Zapatay]

I see a few farms as I drive around our area and am wondering, if I haul the manure - when is it ready to be used? Next year?

When is manure considered aged enough to use in garden?

[Marlingardener]

Zapatay,
Manure has to be aged, as you know. A manure pile needs to sit for at least 6 months, perhaps longer depending on your climate (colder=longer). When the manure no longer smells, and doesn't look like manure but looks more like soil, it is ready.
I'd suggest adding leaves, grass clippings and perhaps some ready compost to the manure which will make it well-balanced when it hits your gardens.
Here in Texas we use a lot of cow manure (go figure!) but sheep and horse is good, too. The only manure that shouldn't be used is from meat-eating animals.

[Gerrie]

What about chicken manure? I have been putting it in the compost and usually it's six months to a year before it goes in the garden. Is that OK?

[Marlingardener]

Gerrie,
We keep hens, and I put their manure on the compost pile and mix it in well. I generally don't use the compost until it has decayed for at least four months (we have two piles, so while one works the other is used) and haven't had any bad effects. Of course, we have only six hens and their manure is mixed in with their bedding (hay).
I'd think your use of it after six months to a year is well within a safety range. Your garden is going to love it!

[The Helpful Gardener]

Good composting practices with sufficient biological innoculation can turn some composts as fast 14 days utilizing modern methodology (intensive turning, forced air beds, Scarab turners; that sort of thing)

Quick show of hands; how many of you have all of the above? One of the above?

Didn't think so. So we must rely on the addition of time to allow our biologies to build to the level to mitigate pathogens, break down bulk into humus and basically turn our poop into soil.

So a long answer to say, when it looks like soil and smells like soil, it's soil. Turn daily, force air through the pile, water with compost tea, maybe run it through your Compost Cat, and you can be done in under a month. But if you want to do less than that , and who doesn't, then turn when you can until it looks, smells, and feels like soil...

HG

[Marlingardener]

Scott,
That is the most practical approach and definition of composting that I have ever heard. Bravo!

[The Helpful Gardener]

Thanks MG!

I know everyone wants a calendar definition because it makes it easier for we humans to plan that way, but microbes don't have calendars, so it just doesn't work. They move to the rythym of food, air, and water; time is meaningless...

HG

[smokensqueal]

Coming from a long farming back ground manure is ALWAYS ready to use. But the question should be more like how to use it and manure from what animals have different usages. Some burn (chemical burn) plants if you put it on them others are more mild. If you are starting a garden bed with nothing planted you can use some right then and there if you are planning on tilling and waiting some time before planting.

But the safe answer for such a general question would be to compost not just age any plant eaters manure. Then you can be for sure it's safe to use how ever you want.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Plus as you compost the manure, you actually INCREASE the effectivenes over just plain poop, not detract from it. So there's that...

HG

[Toil]

I was thnking like this earlier today: in nature, manure is not spread evenly.

I could expound on all sorts of reasons European farming tradition has taught us to see manure as the final and first step of the poop loop. It just ain't so. Mammals are a tiny part of biomass in a balanced system. So a system with poop everywhere is likely unbalanced. Thus we come up with ideas like "rank feeders". IMHO the biggest force at play in most gardens is that of the self fulfilling prophecy. They need poop because you add poop.

HG - sometime let's explore the idea that while compost is key, maybe it's not a substitute for feeding the soil directly. In all that turning and speeding, I can't help but suspect something is lost. Are we trying to have cake and eat it too?

That said - consider an eastern method for dealing with poop - acid fermentation.

[The Helpful Gardener]

I'd agree that manure is not spread evenly in Nature, but that is a function of ecotype, not agricultural input. You are operating under an agricultural assumption based more on our processes to date that it NEEDS to be enenlt distributed, because we humans LIKE even distribution. It is neater, and fits our Cartesian sense of order. But please note, Nature does not plant in rows or order it's ecotypes in neat little squares, so it is hardly concerned with even, or pretty, or fair. It just does what it do. AND after the wildebeest, or bison, or caribou or whatever ungulate has rolled through, look at the soil. Not turned over in pretty rows, but certainly homogenized. So there's that.

As for your misgivings about "losses" due to turning, let me assure you the opposite is true. We are FAR more likely to volatize our nutrition in an anaerobic system than an aerobic one, and this includes the lactic acid fermentation of bokashi or other anaerobic digestion systems, which I do not even call composting, as it is not aerobic. The USCC and I actually agree on this point... so turning is a preservant rather than a catalyst for loss...

I espouse compost above all other methodologies with good reason and have seen no scientific evidence to date that makes me waiver one bit in that resolve. It remains the easiest, safest, most permanent method for establishing sustainable soil fertility, and it works everywhere, every time. I see no need to question that untill I see some data that contradicts my thinking...

HG

[Toil]

Hmmm nice HG I see your point. Since we change the shape we change the shape.

Loss - I meant the chance for aggregate formation and fungal fingers. Lost opportunities and association in exchange for stabilization. Not so much leading us away from compost, but seeing it as a catalyst instead. Sort of. I'm having trouble expressing it.

So for instance, spreading compost good, spreading compost on dead stuff from last year or even cardboard better. I've seen accidental success when that happened, and I'm wondering what explains it.

[The Helpful Gardener]

The process of fungal distribution is a main goal of composting. Turning is a disbenefit in the immediate for fungal cultures as ANY break in a hyphae ends it's growth, but this needs to be accomplished in the soil anyway, not in whatever vessel or pile you are using. Distributing hyphae is both impossible and pointless; we want to distribute spores. So while hyphae have a value as an indicator of good fungal counts, they are useless as an innoculant; it is the spores you cannot see that will do that...

HG

[Toil]

So you are saying the direct food (mulch, debris, manure in proper amounts) is still vital, and nobody said it isn't, and I'm imagining things? So it's not about manure or not, but as another poster said, using it properly.

Makes sense!

How would you assess what amount of manure and such to use and when? The year before planting? 2 years? 7 years of grazing followed by 2 years of corn?

[The Helpful Gardener]

A cow pasture is a fertile soil. I'd likely see little or no need to add compost.

A field worked over by plants, all removing nutrition might need some, but what plants? For how long?

And what manure? Composted or uncomposted?

The questions are pointless without relevant data. I wouldn't guess at stuff; I'd do a soil test, assess soil biologies, and tailor my approach from there. Anything else is meaningless speculation...

But compost never hurts, just might be wasteful in some cases...

HG