Steer compost in garden

[Zootal]

There is a bark place down the road that sells mushroom compost and steer compost. Is this stuff good for the garden? Can I use it like compost and heap it on the ground around plants and trees?

[Zootal]

I have a truckload of the stuff sitting out front. It looks like slightly dried and aged steer manure, I'm not sure how much it's been "composted". I'm guessing it might be a bit hot and should be used sparingly. Anyone have experience with this stuff?

[Billy]

Manure should be at least six months old before use. By mushroom compost, do you mean the medium that the mushrooms grow in? If so, that is probably horse manure and was sterilized before it was used for mushrooms (good to go). These are fertilizers, if I read you properly, a source of nitrogen for the plants, not what gardeners usually think of as mulch, which is usually worm food.

Like mulch, leave six foot radius around the tree clear, if you plan to feed them. Most plants could do well with a side dressing about now.

[Zootal]

It is aged, you can tell by looking at it, but there is no telling how long it was aged. It has a fairly pleasant odor (for manure, that is) which would indicate some aging. I think I'll go sparingly just in case...hate to fry my plants with hot manure.

[Zootal]

PS - it's definitely not mulch. This is plain old somewhat aged cow poop.

[Bill]

Dump it into a pyramid shaped pile. Add two steer horns and cover with a tarp. Remove in 3 .3 decades and spread it about . The horns should be filled with sand.

Na just spread the shit about. You seem to be well on your way.

Bill who has a horn in water in my basement for about 30 years.

[paghat]

STEER MANURE:

I like the look of steer manure because as a top-coating or mulch it's inert so retards weeds but looks like rich loamy topsoil. If properly and fully composted it will have a good earthy smell and is totally-totally good stuff. If it smells poopy it's not so great, though still not likely to be harmfully pathogenic though even the slightest risk of e-coli would warn against using it if it smells poopy or rotten eggish.

MUSHROOM "COMPOST":

Mushroom compost isn't composted mushrooms but "spent mushroom substrate" and whatever of the mushrooms is in it is usually not even fully composted. It's usually "steamed" before shipped for garden use but is frequently just not authentically a composted product. Because not fully composted it CAN leech nitrogen from soil until it finishes breaking down, though in general this isn't an issue as it is with bark, it has enough nitrogen of its own to unleash some of it rather than draw out the garden's.

Mushroom compost nutrient content is unpredictable because the content of the spent substrate can be extremely varied. Typically it's a mixture of such ingredients as straw, horse manure, chicken manure, peat, bark, and lime. The lime can have effects on soil not planned for, many plants declining due to alkalinity, far fewer plants loving alkalinity.

Commercial compost workers have also been documented to suffer severe respiratory disease from organic mushroom compost dust exposure. Garden use would not have such a risk but it is wise to wear a mask during application, and not use it in arid gardens where winds might stir up dust and spores enough to effect lungs of pets or gardeners. Never apply it if it's dried and powdery; wet it down to 50% moisture which makes it easier to spread and nixes potentially dangerous dust.

If it stinks of ammonia or poo, that's cuz it's got raw sewage or manure, bad, bad. All these caveats sound like it is invariably be rotten stuff for the garden, but it's by and large okay, and mainly you have to consider the issue of it having lime in it and it has to pass the stink test and should smell more like autumn leaves than crap. If you're lucky, the variety of content means it has the best array of micro-nutrients such as manganese and iron and whatnot.

BARK:

Bark is terrible for sucking nitrogen out of soil. It's fine once it's completely broken down and bark's a totally reasonable component of fully composted product, but as chunks of bark uncomposted, the guarantee it will subtract nigrogen from the soil has to be considered. A little bark will encourage beneficial fungus and some shrubs such as vacciniums or dogwoods really like the extra fungus; huckleberries in particular even prefer the lowered nitrogen in favor of heightened fungus. For most gardens it's a poor choice of mulch since depleting the nitrogen slows the growth of most perennials and annuals. If there's reason to WANT the soil to be poor for growing (because nothing will ever be planted there) then these points won't matter.

My favorite of the three is definitely well-composted manure (steer or dairy or chicken or zoo doo), the steer being generally cheapest and having many positive points and very little against it. Chicken manure has twice as much nitrogen as does steer manure, and steer has more nitrogen and potasium than dairy manure, but as a top-coating at least it's all the same as it is fairly inert unless mixed up with soil at which point manure composts feed the microorganisms that produce the nitrogen and other nutrients.

-paghat the ratgirl

[Billy]

Take a look at

probably don't want to use it on anything that you'll be harvesting in the next three months, if it hasn't been commercially composted, i.e. done in very large lots to generate the heat needed to kill pathogens.

[FarmI]

Yes.

[FarmI]

I disagree strongly with this. I use manure pretty fresh and always have. It just depends on where you use it.

I think that the taboos about manure stem from old books (mostly from Europe) which all talk about "aged manure". I suspect that most people believe that without ever having tried it really fresh.

[FarmI]

Then use it now and dont' let the nutrients escape into the ground in a non useful place. Don't put it around the base of lettuce or parsley but anything that will be harvested from above the level of the poop will love it as will your worms.

[FarmI]

Sunlight and soil biota are also good destroyers of pathogens.

[David Hare-Scott]

I agree. I live in the midst of cattle country and we run horses as well. Manure from either can be used within a few weeks of date of plop when it has dried somewhat.

Manure from birds (chickens, turkeys etc) is another matter altogether as the content of nutrients is much higher. It must be diluted and/or composted and/or aged before use. I prefer diluting and composting in with other plant material as these help to retain the nutrients as just leaving it lying in a heap will allow the soluble nutrients (especially nitrogen compounds) to leach away. This usually results in great growth of grass downslope from the pile which may not be what you want.

As for the neccesity of hot composting and sterilizing I think the risk of picking up a pathogen from the manure of a herbivore is greatly over estimated. Sure there are E.Coli and other pathogens that can live in humans in their guts but we all live in a microbiological soup. The air, the water and every object we touch is covered in microbes by the gazillion. Living isn't something you can do sterile.

There are a great many people in the western world who live in big cities who are horrified at the thought of anything that has come out of the arse of a living creature. [I always knew that a boiled egg is the work of the devil] I have had people ask me "where do the horses go to the bathroom?" When I replied "where ever they please" they were horrified.

You have only to look at the vast market for fancy surface cleansers, coloured stuff to put down your toilet etc, most of which is entirely pointless, to see how this fear is reinforced by vested interests. Much of this squeamishness is based on the fear that one spot of fecal matter on ones skin will automatically result in an illness. You wash before eating don't you? You have an immune system don't you? But you are a bad parent whose children ought be taken away if your whole bathroom isn't sprayed with Zeppo Ultraclean daily.

I would say changing the dirty nappy of an infant is far more dangerous (not to mention unpleasant) than spreading barrows full of not fully composted cow manure.

David

[David Hare-Scott]

Why do you say that? Do they have greatly different diets where you are?

David

[Billy]

If given 3 - 4 months of warm summer days ;-)

[Billy]

and how lucky you feel ;-)

[Billy]

With the caveat that contact (with root crops, lettuce or herbs), splashing from rain, or dust from working the soil can transmit pathogens to low lying fruit and, ultimately, to to you, even if you are Australian. Ornamentals, fruit trees or, corn are no problem.

[Billy]

From chicken to zoo doo

[Dioclese]

Kinda confusing, the FDA and other naysayers of animal poop. The last tainted spinach thing, that found the couple of rows where it was located in a farm in California. Uphill from there, cattle graze. They heavily implied the cow manure during heavy rain was the culprit. But, didn't come out and say it was for sure. Seems more rhetoric and guessing, than science to me.

[Billy]

A surmise perhaps, but not without foundation or precedent.