On 9 Feb 2005 at 22:26, Anil Kaushik wrote:

Billy

Thank you for refreshing my knowledge on these three points. As far the toxins,
a few years ago one Professor from Punjab Agriculture University gave a talk on
fertilizers and manures for plants. During that comprehensive talk he had said
that when the manure starts fermenting it give off some gases and produces some
substances which are harmful to the roots especially the tender ones. I cannot
recollect the name of those substances but perhaps it was "cryptogams" (I am
afraid if I remember it correctly). In nutshell to prevent root scorching, one
should use only well rotted (about a year old) manure.

With this I will request Nina and Jim to elaborate on this.



I doubt that this constitutes "elaboration" but I'll add that
"raw" manure (manure right from the source, so to speak) will
release highly soluble nitrogen compounds and ammonia, both of
which will burn plant roots if applied heavily. Raw manure from
herbivoires also will contain weed seeds.

Use manure via the compost pile or by making "manure tea."

Rodale give this formula for manure tea:

Place one or two shovelfuls of raw manure into permeable bag
(the finer the weave the better). Burlap is good. Tie the bag
closed and place in a barrel or other large container filled
with water. Steep for about a week (2 weeks is OK).

Use full strength as a fertilizer applied alone, like every 2
weeks or so). Or, dilute it and use it when you water your
trees.

Here's a table (again courtesy of Rodale) showing the NPK
analysis (percentages) of "typical" manures.

Chicken 1.1 - 0.8 - 0.5
Cow 0.6 - 0.2 - 0.5
Duck 0.6 - 1.4 - 0.5
Horse 0.7 - 0.3 - 0.6
Pig 0.5 - 0.3 - 0.5
Rabbit 2.4 - 1.4 - 0.6
Sheep 0.7 - 0.3 - 0.9
Steer 0.7 - 0.3 - 0.4

I have no idea why "steer" is different from "cow" (fertilizer-
wise, I mean.) ;-)

Do NOT use manure from carnivoires or omnivoires; it can contain
organisms that are harmful to us.

At any rate, these all constitute a fairly weak fertilizer.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Nature
encourages no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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