blue power
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- Location
- Staffordshire
Been thinking a lot about compost on the farm since going to Elaine Ingram's workshop in January, then one by Joel Williams. Family, work and illness have meant I have only made garden scale compost so far. Went on a microscope and soil biology course yesterday and have learnt how to look at compost teas so inspired again. Think compost tea maybe the way to go on our farm. It is mixed dairy beef and arable.
With green waste compost brought on to farm, is it the aim of improving soil biology, to increase OM or as a nutrient source that people use it. I worry it has poor soil biology with low fungi levels and could be anaerobic, depending how it is produced. I had plans to turn all our muck into compost on farm, but have struggling how best to do it on a farm scale without huge expense to set up, and also where to get carbon source from to balance the nitrogen in the muck. We have good OM levels in our soils being a mixed farm, and can get nutrients from the muck by putting it on as FYM or slurry. So I am thinking make a small amount of very good compost with the right biology and use that to make compost tea and apply that to improve soil. Is anybody doing this on a farm scale and how is going? Was wondering if adding compost tea before or after applying muck to ground would make the nitrogen beter utilised by soil.
Do you mean wood as in wood waste (pallets, builders waste etc..)? or as in green compost ?@ajd132 . I too, am wondering how to add wood to my N rich big heaps of dairy cow fym after listening to Joel on Monday. I have a dung spreader and an 8 ton tracked digger but manpower is limited. I used to just compost fym on its own, still good stuff but better if it was suited to AMF rather than bacteria.
you wouldn't want (or be allowed to I expect) spread any treated wood on landDo you mean wood as in wood waste (pallets, builders waste etc..)? or as in green compost ?
Hence my question !!you wouldn't want (or be allowed to I expect) spread any treated wood on land
That would make it easier, is it much more expensive than straw?Woodchip or green waste will do but chip higher c:n ratio which I need to offset fym. Guess I could buy some chip for bedding
Cost prohibitive now, too many biomass boilers about...we used to be able to get woodchip for the cost of transport only from green waste people, all that Leylandii etc, it wouldn't compost easily so they were keen to be shot of it and we'd bed the outdoor corral with it, much cheaper than straw. Now it's £80/ton or soAny unprocessed (except cutting) wood, ideal being bark chips or pellets. No idea of costs.
you wouldn't want (or be allowed to I expect) spread any treated wood on land
This is my first year trying composting so Im a green horn. I have a few big heaps of very rich FYM that have being out in the fields since about 1st of feb, I turned them a month ago but I assume the FYM is too rich in N and not a whole lot happening. So is it a case of adding carbon to the heaps to get things moving? If I was to mix in horse stable waste which is sawdust that I can collect locally would this speed up the process and make the whole heap more aerobic. What sort of quantities would I want to be adding. Could I mix it 4 to 1, Fym to Sawdust. Ideally I want this stuff ready for spreading around July/Aug
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.Anyone thought of growing the higher carbon component to put with FYM to make more fungi dominated compost. We have some very big hedges on the farm, they have not been cut for a long time. I have been thinking there is tonnes for brash there that could be chipped and added to compost. We should probably start doing something with hedges as although I think a big hedge is great for wildlife these are now too big. We pollarded a large number of withy trees in our meadows a couple of years ago and had brash piles as big as a house, they got burnt and I now wish we had chipped them. Not sure how the cost of chipping stacks up against buying in wood chip.