Humus or manure as fertilizer - which is better and why? Applying manure to the ground.
Manure is the most commonly used organic fertilizer for gardening and is an excellent means of increasing soil fertility. Almost no gardener can do without using organic matter; it is the basis of the soil structure - humus.
Features of manure fertilizers
In general, manure is a multiphase system consisting of solid, liquid and gaseous substances, and depending on the type of animal husbandry, it can be obtained in three forms:
- bedding-free manure (pure animal waste products, undigested particles of plant food);
- manure with bedding is straw, hay or sawdust, in greater or lesser quantities;
- slurry is, as a rule, manure drains, when not only manure is collected, but also water after washing premises (boxes or milking parlor).
Naturally, manure in its pure form is more profitable to purchase, since it contains only fertilizer.
Straw manure, and even more so manure containing sawdust, has a limited area of application and is less valuable for the gardener. Although, on the other hand, straw in fresh manure absorbs urine and absorbs ammonia, reducing nitrogen losses.
But slurry is not just a highly diluted “nectar”, part of the nutrients of which will simply leak into the ground, but may contain various impurities, such as residues detergents, therefore, when purchasing manure, choose drier fractions.
Litter manure provides good structure to any type of soil and quickly replenishes the humus layer. However, when buying a manure machine, pay attention that the straw content is not too large (straw itself is much cheaper than manure), and the length of the straw cutting should be no more than 10-15 cm.
Types of manure
Manure comes in different origins:
- Mullein (from cattle)
- Horse dung
- Pig manure
- Rabbit, bird, etc.
Pig manure, as a rule, is rarely used in vegetable growing and floriculture - it is not readily available, but those who keep pigs can easily use it for feeding. It should be taken into account that pig manure is highly acidic and must be heated for at least a year so as not to burn the plants.
Bird droppings fertilize the soil for up to one year, thereby being the fastest-acting remedy. Used dissolved 1:10.
Mullein is the most common and inexpensive manure; unlike horse manure, it is cheaper and more accessible.
Compound various types fresh manure:
- Cow: nitrogen - 0.5%, phosphorus - 0.28%, potassium - 0.6%, lime - 0.4%, pH 8.1
- Horse: nitrogen - 0.59%, phosphorus - 0.26%, potassium - 0.59%, lime - 0.21%, pH 7.9
- Pork: nitrogen - 0.8%, phosphorus - 0.58%, potassium - 0.62%, lime - 0.18%, pH 7.9
In addition, manure contains a number of minerals: sulfur, magnesium, calcium, boron, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, molybdenum.
Cow dung
Cow manure can be purchased at the nearest farm; private traders (from domestic cows) sell manure in buckets or bags. But in general, mullein can be purchased:
- fresh, just removed from a farmstead or farm, it should be of a thick consistency; if not diluted with water from wastewater, it is a non-flowing mass - bedding-free cow manure has the consistency of thick sour cream (humidity 70-75%), and straw - light holds its shape;
- half-rotted - lying in heaps for several months, considerably weathered and having lost 10–30% of the original mass and organic matter. If it was straw manure, then the bulk of the litter has rotted and crumbles easily;
- rotted manure or humus is decomposed manure; the bedding material in it cannot be distinguished either by structure or color from the total mass.
Fresh manure (mullein) is used both in spring and autumn, during the preparation of land for sowing or after harvesting the main crop and incorporating it into the soil. Mullein is first prepared in the form of a solution, diluted with water 1:10 and infused for 5 days. Manure can be used as biofuel when creating warm beds.
Semi-rotted manure can be used to prepare liquid fertilizers and for irrigation: dilute 1 kg per 10 liters of water; as mulch, placing 5-10 cm under the bushes of fruit trees and shrubs.
Rotted manure - ready-made humus is used as a component of the soil mixture for planting indoor flowers (diluted with garden soil 1:3 or 1:4), for preparing the soil in holes when planting (mixed with sand or in pure form), for planting, bushes and trees.
Application of manure
How to use manure depends on the crop being grown; in general, this fertilizer is suitable for almost all vegetables, fruits and berries. Only some plants accept it in any form, others do not tolerate only fresh manure, but respond well to the addition of humus.
Melons (zucchini, cucumbers), as well as cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes are especially responsive to feeding with mullein. Mullein is indispensable for feeding roses, peonies, clematis, dahlias, and lilacs.
Fresh cow manure for fertilizing in root irrigation should be diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10.
Some gardeners use fermented cow slurry (it contains less nitrogen - the ammonia will evaporate). Plastic barrels are used for this. 1/3 of it is filled with manure, the rest is water. The solution must be mixed and left to ferment for a week. The fermented organic fertilizer is ready for fertilizing, but it must be diluted again with water 1:3 (3-4 buckets of water for 1 bucket of slurry). It is good to water berry plants with such fermented slurry - strawberries, raspberries, currants at the rate of 10 liters of fertilizer per 1 m² of land. Fertilizing should be done in the spring, at the time of the appearance of the first young leaves.
How to measure manure:
A standard 10 liter bucket filled to the top can hold:
- 8 kg of fresh horse manure;
- 9 kg fresh cow dung;
- 5 kg of manure on a bed of sawdust or straw
- 7 kg of humus;
- 12 kg of slurry.
What plants don't like fresh manure?
Fresh manure should not be applied to vegetables such as carrots and onions; legumes, beets, garlic, radishes, and radishes do not tolerate it well. But it is impossible to completely do without organic matter in growing these vegetables - manure is applied to the ground in the fall in a rotted form (humus).
Bulbous flowers do not tolerate not only fresh manure, but also insufficiently decomposed manure - in order to improve the soil before planting tulips, daffodils, lilies, manure must be applied 2 years before planting.
You need to be careful when applying cow manure to the grapes; if such a need arises, fresh mullein must be diluted very heavily - no less than 1 to 20, so as not to burn the berry fields.
An excess of organic fertilizers is dangerous for plants, it undermines the plants’ resistance to diseases - powdery mildew in cucumbers, late blight in potatoes and tomatoes, root crops suffer from gray rot, any vegetables overfed with organic matter are poorly stored.
How to make warm beds
Horse manure is more suitable for heating the soil - due to the large amount of grain residues (a feature of the horse's diet), it heats the soil more strongly (up to 55-60°C) and retains heat longer than cow manure.
At the bottom of the future bed (in a hole, trench or on the surface of the ground if the bed is lined with sides) in the fall we lay out a layer of drainage: branches, crushed stone, half-rotten pieces of wood. Next is a layer of tops, any plant residues, then a layer of manure, as much as you have at your disposal (on average 5-10 cm), then a layer of fertile soil. If the beds are very high (40-50 cm), then plant residues and manure must be laid in alternating layers.
In the spring, immediately after the snow thaws, you need to water the garden bed and cover it with non-woven material for several days. Then plant the seedlings.
A warm bed requires updating every 2-3 years.
To do this, you first need to prepare it. Since in the body of cattle, whose waste products we most often use, the eaten vegetation is very seriously processed in the esophagus, then in it, as a result of methane fermentation without oxygen, the acid becomes particles containing nitrogen. But a pig’s esophagus is completely different, acid is not converted in it, but comes out along with excrement, in order to rid them of acid and toxic elements, the composition must become compost, then the acid is converted into useful elements. Such compost is not recommended for use in greenhouses and various rooms that have increased humidity and elevated temperatures, otherwise oxidation processes will become more intense.
Pig manure has the following physical properties:
- It is liquid, which makes it easy to add to compost heaps.
- It's sour. Therefore, they use it, always adding lime or something else so that it does not acidify the soil (or pour it in the form of compost into the ground, which has alkaline properties).
- Compared to other types of excrement, it decomposes much more slowly. Because of this, it is recommended to add it to compost heaps; it is required that it lie under the snow in winter.
- It is low in calcium.
- It's in fresh condition a large number of nitrogen, because of this it can burn crops, so it is recommended to use it only when rotted.
- It has poor heat dissipation.
- It can be used like the waste products of any other animal, but it is not as nutritious as mullein. It needs to be fully ripe before use, which takes 1-2 years.
- Pig excrement itself is used on warm soils, but when mixed with horse waste, it can be placed in any soil.
Why you can’t add fresh pig excrement to the soil
In the ground, they begin to intensively release gases and heat, and this will lead to the destruction of vegetation.
Manure that has completely decomposed is called humus. It makes the soil composition much better. Rotted pig feces must be poured in the fall so that they are half-ripened during the winter.
This semi-rotted manure can be used for vegetables that ripen early: cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin, onions. At first, when planting, the amount of harvest may be the same as last year, but after another year the harvest will increase.
How to Reduce Acid in Pig Feces
To reduce the acidity in the compost, add one of the following substances:
- 100 g of dolomite flour per 10 kg of pig feces;
- 150 g of simple superphosphate per 10 kg of pig waste;
- 100 g of double superphosphate per 10 kg of feces;
- 50 g of lime per 10 kg of feces, although when adding lime, many useful elements will decompose in the composition;
- add 100 g of phosphate rock to a bucket of pig waste. Phosphorite flour will prevent nitrogen from evaporating, reduce acidity and start microbiological processes.
But pig waste is dangerous not only because it oxidizes the soil, it can also burn the roots of seedlings due to too high a concentration of nitrogen. Even if you scatter them around the area in the fall, and they lie under the snow in winter, they can burn plant roots in the spring. True, their composition, the presence of ammonia and nitrogen in it depends on whether the pigs were raised with or without bedding.
Pig manure without bedding contains 55-70% soluble nitrogen; plants easily absorb this nitrogen. It also contains quite a large amount of phosphorus. It is easily absorbed by plants compared to phosphorus in mineral fertilizers, since it is not fixed in the soil. There is little potassium in this organic matter, but it is perfectly absorbed by plants. Dry feces of piglets contain more nitrogen and phosphorus than the same amount of cow manure. But the manure of pigs without bedding contains more acid and organic nitrogen than the feces of pigs with bedding.
On average, dry feces without litter have approximately 80% organic matter, 2.8% nitrogen, 20% ash, 1% phosphorus, 1.2% potassium oxide, and with litter - 86% organic matter, 1.7% nitrogen, 14% ash. , 0.7% phosphorus, 2.1% potassium oxide.
How to use pig manure
Fresh feces can be diluted in water and watered between the rows of adult plants.
You can add compost that has not had any lime compounds added (dolomite flour, superphosphate, lime) to alkaline soils to acidify them.
The best thing is to make compost from pig feces, and the plants will perfectly absorb everything useful material In addition, the smell of pig feces will disappear. It is made in the same way as compost from waste products of cows - feces are placed in layers with mowed grass, fallen leaves, tops, plant debris, etc. Compost is formed within a year - it dries by 1/3, helminth eggs dissolve in it , weed seeds. It is recommended to make the compost heap not dense, then oxygen will enter it, and the seeds will decompose due to high temperature. As a result, humus is formed. This is completely rotted manure. If you need to prevent the soil from oxidizing, then you need to wait 2-3 years until the compost overheats. During this period, the compost becomes black and crumbly.
Pig feces can be mixed into soil for winter use.
In the fall, they dig a hole, pour feces into it, and add earth on top. In the spring, this fertilizer is used, although it is only manure, which is half rotted.
Mix pig feces with horse manure.
For loams, it is recommended to add sawdust and straw to this mixture.
They make ash.
Burn the pig feces. The ash will not contain acid, but it will contain useful elements.
You can place manure on sawdust or tree shavings. Then the combination of manure and shavings makes the soil very loose.
Pork waste products have a strong and unpleasant smell, but they can be used on any type of soil; completely rotted feces fertilize plants well. If they are mixed with the soil, the soil does not get tired of this fertilizer and becomes more and more fertile with each subsequent application. It is best to mix this fertilizer with the soil in the greenhouse.
Pig manure is spread on the ground as fertilizer and dug up in the fall. This is done only after it has thoroughly rotted, and for this it will take about 1 year. Fresh feces will make the soil acidic and add weed seeds and helminths. You cannot apply mulch even from pig manure with bedding. Also, you should not apply the composition in the spring just before sowing seeds or planting seedlings.
The average dose of well-rotted manure is 1 - 2 buckets per 1 m².
Use by placing a bucket of compost under a berry bush, or per 1 m² - under fruit trees and vegetables (except for root vegetables), for onions and garlic, 0.5 buckets per 1 m², for cabbage, 1.5 buckets. If the soil is very depleted or the area is sandy, 0.5 buckets per 1 m² are also placed under the root crops.
Pig manure contains all the useful elements such as nitrogen (N), potassium (K), phosphorus (P), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca), and various trace elements that help plants grow actively and produce a large harvest.
I live in the village. I moved from the city to the village and for the fourth year now I have been mastering the delights and difficulties of village life. Now spring has come, and the main thing for us is the vegetable garden. In our village, we don’t have fashionable urban conversations about how healthy manure is and whether it should be replaced with green fertilizer. There is manure - there will be a harvest.
Country classic
All Newest technologies cultivating the land is not for our villagers. Here they acted and acted the old fashioned way.
Fertilizers include only manure.
In the fall, after harvesting, they plow the ground with a horse or walk-behind tractor and spread manure on top. In the spring they spread manure again and plow again. No crop rotation. Potatoes have been in the same field for years; the beds always contain the same garlic, cabbage, onions, beets and carrots.
There are cucumbers and tomatoes in the greenhouse. When summer residents appeared and with them black spandbond lutrasil, the villagers began to use it - planting strawberries on it. Apple trees are never fed or watered. They don’t worry too much about raspberries and currants either. And everything grows and bears fruit. True, it’s different every year. But this is attributed to nature and weather.
Neighbor - frontline worker
One of my neighbors, a summer resident from the regional center, has extensive experience in communicating with the land. Her vegetable garden is a picture: not a single extra blade of grass in the beds, and the paths between them are so trampled, as if they had been specially compacted. In the greenhouses there are thickets of cucumbers and tomatoes. A sea of strawberries, giant zucchini, onions the size of oranges. The reason is increased nutrition. Literally everything is used here: manure, grass infusion, and chemical fertilizers. Now, in April, the neighbor is busy digging up all the beds with a shovel from morning to evening.
Garden experiment
My other neighbor, a resident of the capital, loves experiments. One day she was planting potatoes in straw. Alas, that summer there was an invasion of water rats and shrews - they devoured everything. But the pumpkins were a success last summer. The experiment is like this: we mowed the grass and left it, put several layers of newspaper on top, then a couple of buckets of soil, made holes and planted a pumpkin seed each.
I love raised beds. I made them as follows: I dig a trench 30 cm deep, throw branches, old boards, rags, grass, ash, a little earth on top and cover everything with spandbond. Tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and physalis grow well.
Fertilizing with manure - relying on organic matter
However, no matter what the beds and experiments are, the earth still “wants to eat” in order to please us with a good harvest later. In our village they remember the old saying: “The earth is mother, and manure is father.” That's why I also trust the classics. Let's forget about chemical fertilizers and concentrate on manure. The application of manure has little effect on the effectiveness of nitrogen fertilizer, but phosphorus and potassium fertilizers weaken against the background of manure. You should always choose one thing; the earth does not need excesses.
Manure is a complete organic fertilizer, contains all the nutrients necessary for the plant and is a very effective remedy.
What's valuable in it? Magnesium and calcium reduce soil acidity. Microorganisms increase biological activity. Potassium and phosphorus are in manure in a form accessible to plants. Dung nitrogen remains in the soil for a long time. Manure releases a large amount of carbon dioxide into the soil, which is needed for photosynthesis and heat exchange.
Sometimes it is difficult to apply the exact amount of manure to the soil. I have a cheat sheet for this case, I’m sharing it:
A 10 liter bucket includes:
- 8 kg fresh horse manure,
- 5 kg of manure on a bed of sawdust,
- 9 kg fresh cow dung,
- 5 kg of bird droppings,
- 7 kg of humus,
- 12 kg of slurry.
What kind of manure can you fertilize your garden with?
Horse dung- the best. Excellent for greenhouses and greenhouses. Already a week after being placed in the greenhouse, its temperature rises to 60°. It lasts for more than a month, and then drops to 30°.
Rabbit manure It is practically in no way inferior to that of a horse. But this is a rarer option; we have few rabbit farms.
Goat and sheep manure are also excellent materials for biological heating in early spring.
Cow dung– heats up only to 50° and cools down within a week.
Pig manure is similar in heating quality to cow manure; it is better to use both for later greenhouses and greenhouses, when the sun comes up.
Bird droppings– effective, but using in excessive quantities can damage both the above-ground parts and the roots of the plants. Among poultry, goose and duck droppings are more gentle.
Assorted from different types manure– welcome.
Dunginstructions
Manure is stored in dense piles without access to oxygen and loose piles with access to air. The first option, I think, is better. This way all of it is better preserved beneficial features. The period of rotting of manure is up to six months.
I settle the liquid manure before use. Then I embed the solid sediment into the soil, and dilute the remaining liquid with water 5-6 times and water the plants with it. It is mainly a nitrogen-potassium fertilizer. Goes very well with cabbage and root vegetables. Just first the plants need to be thoroughly watered. Fruit and berry crops also love this feeding. You can even spray plants with it when they are affected by powdery mildew.
How and how much to apply manure
Name culture | Amount of manure, kg/m2 | Timing for applying fertilizer |
Strawberries | 100 | Once every 3 years |
Onion, cabbage, garlic | 40-60 | Every year in spring or autumn |
Carrots, potatoes, beets | 40 | Every year in spring or autumn |
cucumbers | 60-80 | Every year in autumn |
Tomatoes | 40-50 | Every year in spring or autumn |
Currants, raspberries, gooseberries | Layer up to 5 cm thick | Every year in autumn |
Apple trees, plum trees, cherries | Up to 30 kg for each tree | In autumn at intervals of 2-3 years |
Applying manure in the vegetable garden and in the garden - share the experience
The worms are working - the earth is resting!
In the fall I buy a car of fresh manure. I make a bedding of straw and grass, and put the brought manure on it. I put cabbage leaves, carrot tops, etc. on this pile. I water the pile periodically and prepare food for the earthworms. Please note: fresh cattle manure must last for at least six months, rabbit manure - two to three weeks, and pork manure - one and a half years.
In spring and summer I also water the pile periodically. In July-August I populate it with earthworms, which I dig up on the site or take from the previous year’s pile. Worms are the world's best doctors, chefs and earth tasters. There are Californian worms, they are more effective, but they are too capricious - they need a certain temperature.
When I harvest tomatoes, cabbage, peppers and other vegetables, I do not uproot them, but chop them down with a shovel or an ax: there are a lot of earthworms on the roots. In autumn they begin their breeding season.
So, the preparatory work is over, now we begin to prepare the soil for the new season. Let's look at this using winter garlic as an example. When and how to plant winter garlic, written more than once. But what to do then?
Taking into account our climate, I harvest garlic on July 15-20. I dig up the vacant area onto the bayonet of a shovel. I throw the earth onto the side of the road and it turns out to be a trench. I put green grass and straw in this trench. I trample it down firmly with my feet and add compost along with earthworms taken from the previous year's pile. The compost rate is 20 kg per 1 sq. m. m, as recommended by scientists.
I fill the trench with earth, and in the next trench I again lay grass, straw, and add compost. That’s it: the plot is dug up and fertilized. Now I take a rake and all the harrow. I water the soil well. After 2-3 days, harrow the soil again so that there is no crust. Now the plot will rest. Depending on weather conditions, after 10-12 days I water it again. Then the harrow, destroying the crust and emerging weeds, gives access to air to the ground.
This care lasts until autumn. The toiler-earth rests and gains strength for the future harvest. I do not use any fertilizers, except for infusions of bird droppings, mullein and herbs.
The main thing: no one can prepare the soil better than earthworms. We looked at the example of winter garlic, but in the same way we prepare the soil freed from under early potatoes and other early cultures. Depending on the soil, I repeat the process after 3-5 years.
Yuri Petrovich ZINENKO.
Below are other entries on the topic “Do-it-yourself cottage and garden”
It is better to buy manure for fertilizer in August-September. Some can be immediately distributed over the area, some can be left to overheat. For the process to be effective, appropriate conditions must be provided. 5-7 days after being brought to the site, the manure is placed in a pile.
Approximately every 30 cm, it is advisable to press it - in other words, trample each layer with boots. This way, nitrogen is better preserved in the mass. Then the manure heap is covered with straw, earth is thrown on top, then a covering material is arranged - a regular film will do. This will reduce the likelihood of atmospheric precipitation penetrating there, which washes out useful substances.
A manure heap can last from one to three years. Gradually the contents turn into a black homogeneous mass. This manure is suitable for any vegetables.
When to Apply Manure
It is highly undesirable to apply fresh manure before planting. In this case, plants experience a lack of nitrogen, since what is formed in the soil will be spent on the decomposition of plant components. But in the second or third year, the applied manure begins to work with good efficiency. Therefore, it is best to apply manure to the soil in the fall.
The following crops can tolerate the addition of fresh organic matter without much damage: zucchini, cucumbers, rutabaga, late cabbage, pumpkin, dill and celery. Humus is suitable for carrots and tomatoes, early cabbage, eggplants and peppers, and radishes.
If there is a lot of nitrogen in the soil, but there is a lack of potassium, phosphorus, and microelements, plants begin to grow rapidly above the ground. The above-ground mass of stems and leaves increases, the underground part deteriorates, and the ability to resist infections weakens. In winter, such root crops are poorly preserved.
How to distinguish manure
Manure decomposition has 4 stages:
- fresh or slightly decomposed slightly changes the color and strength of the straw; if you wash it, the water turns red or greenish;
- half-rotted has a dark brown color, easily disintegrates, the water darkens when washed;
- rotted manure with completely decomposed plant residues is a black, smearing mass;
- humus is an earthy mass with a loose consistency.
At the final stage of decomposition, manure is reduced to three times its original mass.
- What documents should an individual entrepreneur have?
- Accounting for individual entrepreneurs - rules and features of independent reporting under different tax regimes Primary documentation for individual entrepreneurs
- Accounting for individual entrepreneurs: features of accounting in individual entrepreneurs?
- How to privatize an apartment, everything about privatization List of documents for privatization of an apartment