On Jan 18, 12:32*pm, 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?
Michael

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.