Fresh horse manure-stack or use

 I have been collecting some horse manure with barley straw in the last
couple of days.Hard work bagging it up and I hope that it does not
contain any aminopyralid.
I have stacked it a compost heap on my allotment and covered it.
I am wondering when is the sensible time to use it,either for digging
in soon to improve my sandy soil,putting in trenches under potatoes or
putting it around fruit trees.Some of my plotholder neighbours seem to
put it on fairly fresh as they argue that the straw is the best
constituent of the manure (rather than the added nitrogen),and if one
leaves it too long,you lose its benefit.Some others dig in bales of
straw for improving the water holding capacity.
So why is it necessary to use well rotted manure?
Michael

 

"michael"  wrote...

I have been collecting some horse manure with barley straw in the last
couple of days.Hard work bagging it up and I hope that it does not
contain any aminopyralid.
I have stacked it a compost heap on my allotment and covered it.
I am wondering when is the sensible time to use it,either for digging
in soon to improve my sandy soil,putting in trenches under potatoes or
putting it around fruit trees.Some of my plotholder neighbours seem to
put it on fairly fresh as they argue that the straw is the best
constituent of the manure (rather than the added nitrogen),and if one
leaves it too long,you lose its benefit.Some others dig in bales of
straw for improving the water holding capacity.
So why is it necessary to use well rotted manure?

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The standard reply is that the manure/straw will take nitrogen from the soil
in order to rot which is why we are told to use well rotted manure. We get
some delivered (£12. per load) each year that is over 12 months old so no
straw shows, but then we don't have your sandy soil problem, quite the
reverse.
If you are going to use it fresh then also use a high nitrogen fertilizer to
compensate, or keep it in the heap for a few months and throw some Nitro
chalk on it to speed the rotting.
What you really want is some rotted horse manure with sawdust as the bedding
not straw, this lasts much longer as humus in the soil before disappearing
IME. Fresh it's probably even worse at removing nitrogen from the soil. We
used to use sawdust from the local Swan Sanctuary on our old allotment and
it was superb stuff after about a year.

Regarding the aminopyralid, this can easily be tested for by you, just plant
a couple of young tomato plants in some and you will see quite quickly if
there is a problem.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

 

Best left a while to rot.  Best of all if you can selectively pick the
rotted stuff out of the pile of shit when you collect it. :-)
If you have a sandy soil, stuff you add doesn't last long, the
benefits disappear quickly.  Good for root crops but not cabbages
etc.
However root crops don't like fresh manure.
------------
never put fresh chicken manure on anything.   Killed my rhubarb, burnt it to
bits.
Seemed a good idea at the time.
Tina