Why farmers are flocking to manure

[steev]

The question of what the critters are fed is interesting to me because years ago the local sewage treatment plant used to sell composted sludge to nurseries as a soil amendment with the disclaimer that it might not be for veggie garden use, since they didn't test every batch for contaminants. So people who were concerned about possible dangers squawked until they stopped making it available to urban gardeners. Now it's all sold to commercial farmers and soil-mix companies. So the potential danger is still there, but we don't have to be aware of it. Such a relief!

[flowerpower]

Dec 27, 2010 14:45:37 GMT -5 wildseed57 said:

I love using the composted manure and I know that its great for our soil friends that work it into the grown and turn it into useful nutrients that the plants can use, I try not to disturb the soil to much so that the soil ecology is not stopped while the top soil settles down. I think that the use of manure composted or not is far better than chemical fertilizers because they can actually kill organisms in the soil which makes it harder for plants to use it.
George W.

I try not to disturb the soil either. I just dig where I need to plant. Only the garlic patches are deeply dug. I need to get rocks out. There are more every year. But I am probably one of the few people in my area that does not roto-till my garden. I'll just smother the grass or yank the weeds. The goats are more than happy to eat them.

There are a few times a yr where I have to give antibiotics to the animals. If they are sick, I really have no choice. But it's not an everyday thing. I wouldn't use the manure in that case. It's also composting for a year before I use it. So I don't think antibiotics in the soil or crops is really an issue for me. I would be concerned if you get from a commercial farm of any type. You have no idea what they are giving the animals.

[wildseed57]

I know that my dairy friend has to use them at times but He has to dump the milk from any cow that has to have them. I have seen on some commercial soil mixes were it states sludge as part of the mix, I leave that stuff alone as you never can tell what type of sludge it is.
I use to till my raised bed to work the compost into the soil till I saw just how many earth worms I was chopping up, now I just dig a hole to stick my plants in or make a little trench for seeds.
George W.

[paquebot]

I didn't see anything new. Farmers using manure from big operations has been the norm since it began. Didn't get a lot of ink at first because most big operations had their own fields to use it on. When it got to a point where the herd was eating more than the land could produce, it meant buying feed. Extra feed resulted in extra manure but no place to spread it. I can get all of the cow manure I want from a dairy farm which is virtually surrounded by the city. The owner hauls manure 3 or 4 miles away to find a place to spread it. One big dairy rents several hundred acres just in order to have a place to get rid of the manure. There's some summer piles which I would dearly love to be able to access since they are from the milking parlors. They are pure manure scrapings from the floor. Alas, no farm manure ever goes to waste as another farmer is going to very happy to get it. What you don't want to be around is when a farmer agrees to take on the inedibles from a meat packing company. That used to be burned to become tankage. Now it's knifed in 2' deep and that's still not deep enough!

Martin