Using muck to improve soil.

[Farmersdaughter]

This might of been covered in the planned holistic grazing thread, but I have not been able to read all 6300 posts yet.
I have been trying to work out what is best way to get most from cow slurry and cattle FYM. There is lots of nutrients in there that I wanted to get most out of itit witho damaging the soil. At the moment the fym usually goes straight from the shed on to arable stubble before planting wheat, maize or barley, the slurry is pumped by umbilical and put on grass with a dribble bar. The slurry is what I worry most about, when we use to use a splash plate I use to hate seeing all the dead worms it produced. The dribble bar is better but still feel it is not best for soil biology. I would like to compost the slurry and fym with wood chip and apply when full composted ( imaging the lovely compost I make for my garden). Not sure if I will have to separate the slurry before composting and what the best thing to do with liquid fraction. Will it be better for soil than slurry, or should I think about a wet ( wetland ecosystem treatment) system and harvest the wood from this to make compost. Lots of ideas but all needs quite a big change to make work. Any thoughts?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Not my specialist area really but I think composted muck would be better for the land.

@martian and @Kiwi Pete might have more experience of composted muck.

As for slurry I've never used it.

 

[jonnyjon]

This might of been covered in the planned holistic grazing thread, but I have not been able to read all 6300 posts yet.
I have been trying to work out what is best way to get most from cow slurry and cattle FYM. There is lots of nutrients in there that I wanted to get most out of itit witho damaging the soil. At the moment the fym usually goes straight from the shed on to arable stubble before planting wheat, maize or barley, the slurry is pumped by umbilical and put on grass with a dribble bar. The slurry is what I worry most about, when we use to use a splash plate I use to hate seeing all the dead worms it produced. The dribble bar is better but still feel it is not best for soil biology. I would like to compost the slurry and fym with wood chip and apply when full composted ( imaging the lovely compost I make for my garden). Not sure if I will have to separate the slurry before composting and what the best thing to do with liquid fraction. Will it be better for soil than slurry, or should I think about a wet ( wetland ecosystem treatment) system and harvest the wood from this to make compost. Lots of ideas but all needs quite a big change to make work. Any thoughts?

I think treating the slurry with a Bio product would be easier than composting. It wouldn't be easy to do it on a large scale I'd have thought, but would probably be good stuff if it could be done

 

[milkloss]

Not my area of expertise but surely the fym on grass and the slurry onto arable is a better bet? Obviously a harrow run over the grass would be required

 

[Two Tone]

This might of been covered in the planned holistic grazing thread, but I have not been able to read all 6300 posts yet.
I have been trying to work out what is best way to get most from cow slurry and cattle FYM. There is lots of nutrients in there that I wanted to get most out of itit witho damaging the soil. At the moment the fym usually goes straight from the shed on to arable stubble before planting wheat, maize or barley, the slurry is pumped by umbilical and put on grass with a dribble bar. The slurry is what I worry most about, when we use to use a splash plate I use to hate seeing all the dead worms it produced. The dribble bar is better but still feel it is not best for soil biology. I would like to compost the slurry and fym with wood chip and apply when full composted ( imaging the lovely compost I make for my garden). Not sure if I will have to separate the slurry before composting and what the best thing to do with liquid fraction. Will it be better for soil than slurry, or should I think about a wet ( wetland ecosystem treatment) system and harvest the wood from this to make compost. Lots of ideas but all needs quite a big change to make work. Any thoughts?

Could it be that the slurry is too raw on the grass, which is upsetting the worms?
I'd say you FYM is better on the arable as it will help with OM.
But as to what to do to reduce worm damage with slurry on the grassland, I'm not sure other than reducing the volume/ha, by spreading it at a lower dose rate.

All sorts of things can upset worms and bring them to the surface. Detergents and Mustard mixed in water for instance. It makes sense that they are aggravated by high concentrations and I wonder if this is happening with your slurry on the grass.

Then of course animals treated with Ivomectin type wormers will drastically affect the soil worm population too. Earthworms will not be found in cowpats on pastures if the cows are treated.

FYM on grass isn't ideal unless you spread it at a very low rate and finely chopped.

 

[davidroberts30]

what rate are you spreading the slurry?

i think fym is better left 12months in a heap before spreading

 

[martian]

Good idea to compost it. We've got a big heap of woodchips, we mix some in with FYM and then compost that. Just bought a second hand compost turner, it's really weird how hard they are to come across. We've got Menard to demo one at Groundswell this year, they say they sell them all over Europe, but hardly anyone in the UK uses them. Not sure how you could use the slurry to make compost though, unless you can separate the liquid fraction cheaply and easily and then use the solid to work on the woodchip. Still leaves you with the liquid to use without doing damage.

 

[ploughman1963]

What volume of slurry are you applying? We limit applications to 2000galls/ac and have no issues with worms on the surface

 

[bez]

When splash plateing slurry, it’s the vibration of the hose that brings the worms to the surface. They then have nowhere to go as everything is covered in slurry.
Dribble bar or disc injector or trailing shoe will all help your worm numbers. As ploughman1963 also says limiting applications to 2000/gallons/acre will also help reduce worm losses.

 

[roscoe erf]

it will never catch on

 

[carpenter1]

Does any one spread pas 100 compost on their land?

 

[Farmersdaughter]

Good idea to compost it. We've got a big heap of woodchips, we mix some in with FYM and then compost that. Just bought a second hand compost turner, it's really weird how hard they are to come across. We've got Menard to demo one at Groundswell this year, they say they sell them all over Europe, but hardly anyone in the UK uses them. Not sure how you could use the slurry to make compost though, unless you can separate the liquid fraction cheaply and easily and then use the solid to work on the woodchip. Still leaves you with the liquid to use without doing damage.

I have been looking at the WET system

and wondered if it could be used for the liquid fraction. I would like to get a compost turner but need to see if the system will work before buying the kit. Do you make your compost on a concrete pad?

 

[Farmersdaughter]

When splash plateing slurry, it’s the vibration of the hose that brings the worms to the surface. They then have nowhere to go as everything is covered in slurry.
Dribble bar or disc injector or trailing shoe will all help your worm numbers. As ploughman1963 also says limiting applications to 2000/gallons/acre will also help reduce worm losses.

Dribble bar is definitely better but would like to do something that is good for soil rather than not as bad as splash plate.

 

[Farmersdaughter]

I think treating the slurry with a Bio product would be easier than composting. It wouldn't be easy to do it on a large scale I'd have thought, but would probably be good stuff if it could be done

What bio product would you use. We have tried slurry bugs and I think they help but need to add regularly as the slurry kills the bugs and it is expensive. Have thought about brewing my own bugs to add but not sure how easy it would be to do.

 

[davidroberts30]

Put less on..
Theres s few round here use dribble bar then put so much on to drown anything...
2.5k gallons to the acre is more than enough each application

Dribble bar is definitely better but would like to do something that is good for soil rather than not as bad as splash plate.

 

[Farmersdaughter]

what rate are you spreading the slurry?

i think fym is better left 12months in a heap before spreading

The rate of slurry spread is variable, but try to get as low rate as possible. It depends on what ground we have to spread it on when the contractors come to empty pit. Like to see individual lines from the dribble bar, rather than a complete covering. Do think much nutrients are lost if you leave FYM 12 months before you spread it? Or do you think what is left after composting is more bio available so makes up for loses?

 

[davidroberts30]

The rate of slurry spread is variable, but try to get as low rate as possible. It depends on what ground we have to spread it on when the contractors come to empty pit. Like to see individual lines from the dribble bar, rather than a complete covering. Do think much nutrients are lost if you leave FYM 12 months before you spread it? Or do you think what is left after composting is more bio available so makes up for loses?

Personally I think the soil conditioner of 12month fym is second to none

Re dribble bar or injector
Just fill the slot or leave a band of sh!t as wide as the pipes dropping it is my opinion

 

[Renaultman]

How much Nitogen is lost in the composting process? It seems to me to be a 2 edged sword. Genuine question no agenda.

 

[davidroberts30]

I'm not sure
Personally I like to see the soil flourish
Healthy soils =good crops

How much Nitogen is lost in the composting process? It seems to me to be a 2 edged sword. Genuine question no agenda.

 

[bitwrx]

The rate of slurry spread is variable, but try to get as low rate as possible. It depends on what ground we have to spread it on when the contractors come to empty pit. Like to see individual lines from the dribble bar, rather than a complete covering. Do think much nutrients are lost if you leave FYM 12 months before you spread it? Or do you think what is left after composting is more bio available so makes up for loses?

How much Nitogen is lost in the composting process? It seems to me to be a 2 edged sword. Genuine question no agenda.

As @Renaultman says, N is used up by the bugs in breaking down the carbon in the FYM (mostly cellulose / lignin in the straw I guess). So the composition of the manure changes over time. Unfortunately, that's about the limit of my knowledge.
I'm in a similar position on a pig farm, with hundreds of tonnes of FYM and thousands of gallons of slurry currently being under-utilised (and also some yard runoff challenges to address).

Surely there's someone on here that knows about composting? It's a fecking forum full of farmers.

The only compost geek I know of lives in suburban Bristol, and makes compost for her allotment. Have we professionals let our skills slip below those of amateurs?