Compost?

Joe Boy

Member
Location
Essex
only just read this post, but have been thinking similar. I do some hedge laying in winter which generates a fair swath of brash. want to have in the local unimog and chipper to have a go - no idea how much chip it might produce and would need him to call in when passing to keep costs down. my other thought, similar to yours, is that instead of regularly flailing hedges - leave them for say ten years and then someone invent a harvester to chip the growth and take them down to four foot again. if you did this rotationally around the farm you could have a good mix of hedge growth stage, and I bet one chipping wouldn't cost any more than five flailings plus you have the chipped material.

This is a good idea, flailing also means each years growth lands up in the bottom of the ditch leading to silting up and blocking culverts.

Chipping however is expensive and hard work. I have tried chipping brush wood from coppiced hedges for my composting and it took two of us all day to fill a 14 tonne grain trailer. Now I buy it in at £80 a load which is much cheaper and a lot less work.

I have made some huge piles of brush wood 5 years ago and just leaving to rot on its own. One day this will make a lovely material to add into the compost.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Been thinking along similar lines re hedge-cutting. We got a circular saw to go on the digger arm which does a fantastic job of chopping overgrown hedges and we have ended up with some enormous piles of trimmings which I've been wondering how to chip. We used to bed our dry cows on waste wood chip on an outdoor corral, the chips were the size of your fist and we got them for the cost of transport, but they didn't rot down very quickly and they weren't particularly comfortable for the cattle. We now use municipal compost as a base for the corral and straw it up through the winter, but the comost is too fine really and turns to mush, although it makes some lovely stuff to spread. Chipped hedge cuttings would be the perfect base for the corral and would go on to be the perfect compost base, but the question is how to get from A to B...meanwhile I'll try to get as much tree surgeons 'waste' as I can get hold of.
 

Joe Boy

Member
Location
Essex
If anyone here wants to find out more about the SFI (Soil Food Web - Elaine Ingham) approach (compost, compost tea, compost extract and a bit of microscope work), we've got one place available on a course 18-20 April, Haye Farm, Worcestershire, DY12 2TP, with Zach Wright who is one of her three 'soil consultants' (available due to cancellation - was full). More info here: http://www.regenag.co.uk/index.php/course-calendar/stewarding-your-soil.

Sounds fantastic but I will probably be flat out planting Spring crops then. Any chance of another course in May or June?
 
Sounds fantastic but I will probably be flat out planting Spring crops then. Any chance of another course in May or June?
Hi Joe.

I hope so. The trainer is relocating from Jersey back to the US at the moment but we hope to run some courses later in the year (will need to run 3-4 courses to make it viable to transport him back across the pond though). If you go to the website (www.regenag.co.uk) and send an email expressing your interest, then we can keep you in the loop.
 

New Puritan

Member
Location
East Sussex
How long does tree-surgery wood chip type stuff need to rot properly*? It's generally regarded as robbing soil N if used too quickly and not mixed with anything else, but I assume after a while it will get past this point... Anyone know or have experience of this? I've got the space to store it, so am wondering if I could get some cheap now, and save it for later. It just depends on how much later, "later" is.
*Obviously it depends on what was chipped, I guess Leylandii or Christmas trees would take longer than new growth deciduous hedging etc.
 

New Puritan

Member
Location
East Sussex
I reckon it would. Sorry, I should have been clearer - I'd prefer to get deciduous stuff as I think it would be better all round. Obviously beggars can't always be choosers, and if I can find someone who can deliver tonnes of the stuff to me on the cheap there could be all sorts in there.
 

Fuzzy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
How long does tree-surgery wood chip type stuff need to rot properly*? It's generally regarded as robbing soil N if used too quickly and not mixed with anything else, but I assume after a while it will get past this point... Anyone know or have experience of this? I've got the space to store it, so am wondering if I could get some cheap now, and save it for later. It just depends on how much later, "later" is.
*Obviously it depends on what was chipped, I guess Leylandii or Christmas trees would take longer than new growth deciduous hedging etc.
Just remember that chipped wood will take much longer to break down. Those processing commercial scale compost use flail type hammer mulching machines which give you a much finer product and enable it to 'rot' down much quicker than chipped wood. Chipped wood is not used to make 'green'compost.
 

The_Swede

Member
Arable Farmer
I have 200t of FYM in a heap here from a neighbour - a real mix from a (very) deep litter cattle shed, he used lots of tree surgeons chip along with a range of straw.

The wood chip whilst still recognisable is getting very friable now, accompanied by plenty of muck, waste silage etc its all nearly composted down to something quite usable. HOWEVER, this lot was down in the shed for two years and has now been out in a heap and turned four times whilst here, in short its been moved plenty of times and is basically three years old! I'll take a sample of mine and get it analysed in the summer, see what we have in terms of fertiliser value, OM and biology.

Your idea has potential but needs lots of accompanying green material, effort and time!
 

The_Swede

Member
Arable Farmer
That generally has a more alkaline pH but it's high C:N again. Need to find some dung or green material to go with it.
 

New Puritan

Member
Location
East Sussex
Thanks all. I was imagining mixing it 50:50 with green stuff - I've got various options on that, but none of it in massive quantities. Hence wondering if I could effectively double it by adding wood chip.
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Being fairly new to the concept of composting, can anyone recommend any good YouTube videos on the subject to explain the principles and benefits?
@martian have you had any speakers on the subject at Groundswell in the past or plans to do so this year?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Being fairly new to the concept of composting, can anyone recommend any good YouTube videos on the subject to explain the principles and benefits?
@martian have you had any speakers on the subject at Groundswell in the past or plans to do so this year?
Check out Johnson-Su composting, there are plenty videos and even a FB group, it's really quite revealing how a little bit of good compost can achieve far far more than tonnes of poor compost will as a biological primer.
There really is little remedy for extractive industrial farming systems, that part stands out.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Being fairly new to the concept of composting, can anyone recommend any good YouTube videos on the subject to explain the principles and benefits?
@martian have you had any speakers on the subject at Groundswell in the past or plans to do so this year?
I can't think of any we've had before, but have got some enthusiastic compost speakers this year, including one on vermicomposting, ie getting red worms to do the work for you
 

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
 

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