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Appalachian Mtns.

OK, I had a soil test done(simple) on an area I'm cosidering using as a patch next season. I jumped the gun and applied 15 tons or so of fairly fresh cow manure after sending the sample in. It's a 30' x 70' area and the spread manure has only touched the topsoil total area. My ph came back at 5.7.
My question...How will mixing in large amounts of lime react with manure...for now and then again in Spring?

12/5/2002 8:43:04 PM

Caceres, Spain

As far as I read and have been told, mixing manure with lime is no good, but adding them in the soil, one after till the other is ok.

12/6/2002 2:04:13 AM

[email protected]

Kyle,
Despite the weather, you'd do well to get the manure tilled in as soon as you can. Then spread the quantity of Lime indicated by your soil test. Then get it tilled in. The longer the lime has good soil contact, the closer to ideal the Ph will be by spring.

And don't feel bad, my expansion area came back at 4.9 & will require a total of 220lbs per 1000. Not a big deal except the soil is frozen & covered by 8" of snow. Rats!

Steve

12/6/2002 7:00:24 AM

Montoursville, PA

Steve... On lime I got the exact same read as you are reporting. I fail to see why tilling in lime with or at the same time as manure would have any fowl effect.

....Lime takes a long time to cause a PH change. Manure moves from raw to compost. The length of time depends on all of the factors along the way. The bottom line is that natural compost has a PH of 7. If it goes into the patch by tilling a little short of finished it is mildly acid but converts to 7 as it goes through the processes.

.....If the processes are taking place over winter there can hardly be any concern....how much or what.

.....likely more important is the use of a cover crop to keep your patch open and working as a result of the root mass created by the cover crop.

12/9/2002 10:27:38 AM

[email protected]

That is correct in most cases. But I use pelletized Calcitic or Dolomitic (depends on the results) in all cases. The pelletized needs to be thoroughly wetted before tilling. I thought that our Thanksgiving snow would do the wetting for me. It did, but I haven't seen my patch since.

A tiny bit of the lime may be wasted by a chemical reaction with the notrogen component of the manure. But don't worry about it. The effect is too small to be considered a concern. The main thing is to get it into the soil as soon as is reasonable so it can start working.

The Ph change takes time. I use pelletized because it is faster. Maybe as quick as 3 or 4 months. The coarser the grind, the longer the reaction time takes. Could take years for coarse grinds. Pelletized starts out being ground as fine as talc. Too fine for spreading. Then it gets mixed with a binder & turned into a spreadable prill. Nice to work with.

Steve

12/9/2002 11:22:56 AM