making dung for composting.

gr8 m8

Hello.

I've been on this before talking about taking horse bedding from a local stud, I can have as much as I want but the percentage of droppings in it is minimal. Usually I just bed the yearlings with it for the winter which saves me on buying straw myself and normally get by with a trailer of bales for calving cows and rearing calves.

I am a huge advocate for spreading rotted dung on the land in the autumn and believe there are huge benefits to doing so!

This might sound bit out there but I was wondering (now bear with me and humour me if at all possible ) if I was to mix my slurry through this free straw at equal parts by weight, so say a ton of slurry to a ton of straw inside a trailer or dung spreader and leave it on a concrete pad to decompose and turned it semi regularly, would I have good dung in large quantities to fertilise my grass paddocks?

Or would I be better off just spreading the slurry straight out of the tank?

Thank you for your time.

Floki

Yea you'd be bringing a lot of work on yourself by doing that.

If you're using the straw/ light dung for bedding you'll have dung for compost from that anyways.

So you're asking about the straw that you can get but don't need for bedding.
I was at a talk recently about this whole subject and the best results for good bacteria in dung compost came from being stored on clay/soil rather than on concrete which wouldn't be surprising but what was surprising was that the non turned dung was better than the turned dung.

If it was me I won't tell you whether to have it on concrete on not (that's up to yourself and handiness) but make the heap of straw and empty out the slurry on top of it. You could layer it if you want?
You could also add in some dolerite rock dust or some felsic dust but I think I'd prefer the dolerite and the bacteria and heat in the dung will bring out the nutrients from the dust. You'd have super stuff then.

But no for me I wouldn't be going to the trouble of dungspreaders and mixing.
It's a bit dangerous anyway.

blue5000

Floki why is it better not to turn the pile? Only thing I can think of is temperatures maybe going too high.

patsy_mccabe

Don't be making work for yourself. Spread it on the land. There's thousand of little microbes and worms that will do the work for you.

kowtow

blue5000 wrote: »

Floki why is it better not to turn the pile? Only thing I can think of is temperatures maybe going too high.

I have a feeling it's because anaerobic decomposition preserves more nitrogen.

They say the best dung is kept in the shed, deep bedded and trodden by heavy cattle right through the winter, never removed, but left to mature and put out just before the next winter. That way all the oxygen is removed like a silage clamp and you get a fully anaerobic decomposition.

Floki will know better!

gr8 m8

Hello.

Honestly when I think I know just enough about composting to get by I hear more and am lost at sea again!

I was going on the assumption that to make dung and compost and spread it out on the land would attract worms who's castings from digesting the compost would balance my ph levels since worm castings are ph 7, and add humis to the soil which will help retain water and with the worms break up the soil to allow deeper roots and tap nutrients that are further down in the subsoil.

I wanted to combine this with mobile grazing of pasture lays which may allow for a sustainable beef enterprise of traditional breeds of cattle on long rotations and cut out fertiliser, routine dosing and reseeding.

The large quantities of dung was to go on a crop of forage legumes for winter feeding, these crops are a breed of clover which fixes it's own nitrogen but will need Ps and Ks due to the fact that those pastures will be cut twice a year and I don't want the land to be depleted!

Anyone have any further insight for me?

Upstream

gr8 m8 wrote: »

Anyone have any further insight for me?

Joel Salatin

Also, there's a guy from Sligo who's doing something similar. You can look up the Rare Ruminaire on Google and Facebook. He has an organic suckler herd and is using quite a few of the practices you mention. Worth a look.

I'm hoping to try some mob grazing next year as well, so hope it goes well for you.

Upstream

Floki

kowtow wrote: »

I have a feeling it's because anaerobic decomposition preserves more nitrogen.

They say the best dung is kept in the shed, deep bedded and trodden by heavy cattle right through the winter, never removed, but left to mature and put out just before the next winter. That way all the oxygen is removed like a silage clamp and you get a fully anaerobic decomposition.

Floki will know better!

Anaerobic bacteria are supposed to be the bad guys in soil and in compost making. There was someone from ucd I think made up a batch of compost tea and he was wondering why his vegetables weren't doing as well as everyone else's vegetables with their compost tea. They looked at his compost and tea under the microscope and it was full of anaerobic bacteria. So they just had to get rid of his pile and start again. You'd know anaerobic bacteria and conditions by the bad and strong smell. It smells bad to humans anyway. Good compost and tea should barely have a smell or none.

I'm not sure how that works out with that biodynamic business with the cow dung in the cow horn and buried in the soil business. But it must still be aerobic bacteria from the horn because they tried a vegan alternative of a plastic horn and the stuff that came out was supposed to stinking stuff (must have been completely anaerobic) and it was useless.

yosemitesam1

kowtow wrote: »

I have a feeling it's because anaerobic decomposition preserves more nitrogen.

They say the best dung is kept in the shed, deep bedded and trodden by heavy cattle right through the winter, never removed, but left to mature and put out just before the next winter. That way all the oxygen is removed like a silage clamp and you get a fully anaerobic decomposition.

Floki will know better!

I'd say that it's not being anaerobic that makes good compost. Just the restricted air means there isn't a big boom in microbes and a mass die off before spreading.
Piling up the dung outside and spreading would probably get the air into it so microbes peak when it's spread

Floki

Upstream wrote: »

Joel Salatin

Also, there's a guy from Sligo who's doing something similar. You can look up the Rare Ruminaire on Google and Facebook. He has an organic suckler herd and is using quite a few of the practices you mention. Worth a look.

I'm hoping to try some mob grazing next year as well, so hope it goes well for you.

Upstream

Mob grazing or as us Wexford farmers call it paddock grazing.

We're slowly infiltrating the organic movement.:D

Floki

blue5000 wrote: »

Floki why is it better not to turn the pile? Only thing I can think of is temperatures maybe going too high.

It was a surprise to me too.
Now maybe this was only a small trial with a small pile?
Maybe it's best not to disturb the bacteria families doing their business?

I suppose if you didn't want a heap to get too hot the best thing would be to leave the dung heap long and low.

yosemitesam1

Floki wrote: »

Mob grazing or as us Wexford farmers call it paddock grazing.

We're slowly infiltrating the organic movement.:D

Mob grazing is a lot more complicated than normal rotational grazing if done right. Looking to balance grazing quality in the short term versus maintaining a diverse productive sward which needs varied management to keep all species in a balance.

Floki

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

Mob grazing is a lot more complicated than normal rotational grazing if done right. Looking to balance grazing quality in the short term versus maintaining a diverse productive sward which needs varied management to keep all species in a balance.

I know you're all about the different plant species in grassland.
But really mob grazing is essentially get the animals on, get it grazed fast and get them off to allow the pasture to recover and give all the soil fauna a chance to do their thing.
It was discovered on the plains of Africa by observing the roaming herds of herbivores and how well the vegetation grew from this graze and leave, graze and leave.
It is a bit hilarious though that this was also observed and then put into practice in the paddock system and 21 day rotation in New Zealand.
Same system different environment but still it all comes down to how our humble grass plant evolved and grows.

kowtow

A good reference for this is salatin (as mentioned above) and also Gene Lodgson's book "Holy sh**t"

kowtow

Floki wrote: »

Anaerobic bacteria are supposed to be the bad guys in soil and in compost making. There was someone from ucd I think made up a batch of compost tea and he was wondering why his vegetables weren't doing as well as everyone else's vegetables with their compost tea. They looked at his compost and tea under the microscope and it was full of anaerobic bacteria. So they just had to get rid of his pile and start again. You'd know anaerobic bacteria and conditions by the bad and strong smell. It smells bad to humans anyway. Good compost and tea should barely have a smell or none.

I'm not sure how that works out with that biodynamic business with the cow dung in the cow horn and buried in the soil business. But it must still be aerobic bacteria from the horn because they tried a vegan alternative of a plastic horn and the stuff that came out was supposed to stinking stuff (must have been completely anaerobic) and it was useless.

Is there any chance that the anaerobic approach maximises the nitrogen while the aerobic approach improves the soil structure?

Must go back to salatin et. al.

Waffletraktor

kowtow wrote: »

Is there any chance that the anaerobic approach maximises the nitrogen while the aerobic approach improves the soil structure?

Must go back to salatin et. al.

Is there not something to do with ph?
Contractor here say the ad plant has to acidify digestate lagoons to preserve N.

Floki

kowtow wrote: »

Is there any chance that the anaerobic approach maximises the nitrogen while the aerobic approach improves the soil structure?

Must go back to salatin et. al.

Not sure on that one.

It might be how those slurry bugs work and their claim to increase nitrogen.

Base price

gr8 m8 wrote: »

Hello.

I've been on this before talking about taking horse bedding from a local stud, I can have as much as I want but the percentage of droppings in it is minimal. Usually I just bed the yearlings with it for the winter which saves me on buying straw myself and normally get by with a trailer of bales for calving cows and rearing calves.

I am a huge advocate for spreading rotted dung on the land in the autumn and believe there are huge benefits to doing so!

This might sound bit out there but I was wondering (now bear with me and humour me if at all possible ) if I was to mix my slurry through this free straw at equal parts by weight, so say a ton of slurry to a ton of straw inside a trailer or dung spreader and leave it on a concrete pad to decompose and turned it semi regularly, would I have good dung in large quantities to fertilise my grass paddocks?

Or would I be better off just spreading the slurry straight out of the tank?

Thank you for your time.

In the past I used to keep sucklers in a calf to weanling & beef system along with breeding/breaking horses and keeping 10 liveries. The skipping from the stables (straw) was spread as bedding for the cows.
Our contractor would arrive with his loader & dung spreader, clean out the bedded sheds and spread same on the farm. There was a small slatted tank about 20' which doubled for collecting silage run off from the pit and a feed space for the young bulls.
It was a simple system and afaik still works today.

yosemitesam1

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Is there not something to do with ph?
Contractor here say the ad plant has to acidify digestate lagoons to preserve N.

They do that with pig slurry in Denmark AFAIK. It reduces ammonia losses.

yosemitesam1

Floki wrote: »

I know you're all about the different plant species in grassland.
But really mob grazing is essentially get the animals on, get it grazed fast and get them off to allow the pasture to recover and give all the soil fauna a chance to do their thing.
It was discovered on the plains of Africa by observing the roaming herds of herbivores and how well the vegetation grew from this graze and leave, graze and leave.
It is a bit hilarious though that this was also observed and then put into practice in the paddock system and 21 day rotation in New Zealand.
Same system different environment but still it all comes down to how our humble grass plant evolved and grows.

If you want to maximize grass grown without throwing out a lot of fert you can't follow the same grazing management.
If you keep hitting grass as soon as it gets to 3 leaves you'll end up just selecting for bent grass and other very unproductive grasses.
They will grow because they put less energy into growing leaf compared to that of scavenging nutrients. So every round (without large amounts of fert being spread) bent grass will take less of a hit on the nutrients it has accumulated compared to a more productive grass. If you want to stop this happening you need to vary management to favour productivity.
Allowing the chance for herbs and legumes to set seed also can't be done under the 21 day rotation and its not cost effective to keep buying seed.

yosemitesam1

kowtow wrote: »

Is there any chance that the anaerobic approach maximises the nitrogen while the aerobic approach improves the soil structure?

Must go back to salatin et. al.

The aerobic would suit fungi and actinomycetes much better. They'd be very important for soil structure because as their hairs grow out into the soil they release glues that bind the soil into aggregates

Floki

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

If you want to maximize grass grown without throwing out a lot of fert you can't follow the same grazing management.
If you keep hitting grass as soon as it gets to 3 leaves you'll end up just selecting for bent grass and other very unproductive grasses.
They will grow because they put less energy into growing leaf compared to that of scavenging nutrients. So every round (without large amounts of fert being spread) bent grass will take less of a hit on the nutrients it has accumulated compared to a more productive grass. If you want to stop this happening you need to vary management to favour productivity.
Allowing the chance for herbs and legumes to set seed also can't be done under the 21 day rotation and its not cost effective to keep buying seed.

I can guarantee you there's no other way you can maximize the amount of grass grown without the rotation system (fert or not). We can call it mob grazing if we want but to mob graze a lot of people will have to split into paddocks as either the mob is too small or the field is too big.
On the bent grass.
There's plenty of lawns that have ryegrass growing with no fert and just an application of lime occasionally.

What sort of rotation length would you need for legumes in grass? Bear in mind clover is a legume.

blue5000

Floki wrote: »

I can guarantee you there's no other way you can maximize the amount of grass grown without the rotation system (fert or not). We can call it mob grazing if we want but to mob graze a lot of people will have to split into paddocks as either the mob is too small or the field is too big.
On the bent grass.
There's plenty of lawns that have ryegrass growing with no fert and just an application of lime occasionally.

What sort of rotation length would you need for legumes in grass? Bear in mind clover is a legume.

Working on 30-40 days here. I don't think we'll meet teagasc's new target of 10t DM/ha though:p

yosemitesam1

Floki wrote: »

I can guarantee you there's no other way you can maximize the amount of grass grown without the rotation system (fert or not). We can call it mob grazing if we want but to mob graze a lot of people will have to split into paddocks as either the mob is too small or the field is too big.
On the bent grass.
There's plenty of lawns that have ryegrass growing with no fert and just an application of lime occasionally.

What sort of rotation length would you need for legumes in grass? Bear in mind clover is a legume.

I was taking mob grazing to mean the holistic style approach which is what is generally meant when used in the UK.
Do you think that ryegrass in lawn seed would perform more like bent grass in the field or it would be similar to agricultural strains?
The point with this whole holistic approach is that there's no one size fits all approach or guidelines to follow. Red clover, sainfoin, birdsfoot trefoil all benefit from longer rotations than white clover and they as well as alsike clover require extra time to set seed occasionally if they're to persist. Herbs are the same.

Floki

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

I was taking mob grazing to mean the holistic style approach which is what is generally meant when used in the UK.
Do you think that ryegrass in lawn seed would perform more like bent grass in the field or it would be similar to agricultural strains?
The point with this whole holistic approach is that there's no one size fits all approach or guidelines to follow. Red clover, sainfoin, birdsfoot trefoil all benefit from longer rotations than white clover and they as well as alsike clover require extra time to set seed occasionally if they're to persist. Herbs are the same.

Are they profitable though when compared to the longer growing season and higher stocking rates of "conventional " agriculture?

gr8 m8

Hello.

A seed company in England called cotswold seeds have a little booklet about mobile grazing that can be got on their website.

It stated that 100 cattle can do the grazing season on 60 acres with out wintering a possibility if you have another 20 acres to add for the winter rotation.

keryl

A variety of deep roots in your mix helps according to some. A mix that will take and exchange to different levels in the soil and sub soil. This is where the drainage improves, also a humus layer on top rather than grazing to the soil protects it. The layer on top is essentially a sponge for all the rain and give the soil a chance to take in those downpours we seem to get everyday now.

gr8 m8

Hello.

Is anyone here growing or know someone growing a crop of sainfoin? I'd like to hear their thoughts on it

yosemitesam1

gr8 m8 wrote: »

Hello.

Is anyone here growing or know someone growing a crop of sainfoin? I'd like to hear their thoughts on it

Try a small bit and let us know how it goes!
Have a lot of birds foot trefoil here and it goes well. Dry shaley type soil, probably on the acidic side too. It doesn't really get going until mid to late April and needs to set seed but is a super quality feed. It's not as fussy as sainfoin is supposed to be regarding pH and drainage.

Floki

Do any of these alternative plants taint the milk or maybe a nicer way of putting it if you wanted is enchance the milk.

You'd imagine they would.

larthehar

This is an interesting thread but the question of where p and ks are gotten from is the piece i don.t see an answer to..

gr8 m8

larthehar wrote: »

This is an interesting thread but the question of where p and ks are gotten from is the piece i don.t see an answer to..

The Park and Ks come from the dung that the animal leaves behind. In mob grazing you stock animals so tight that you should ideally have a dung pad every 10 feet!

Then the bedding and slurry are put out on your winter fodder grounds to top up those Ps and Ks. That's my understanding anyway.

White Clover

gr8 m8 wrote: »

The Park and Ks come from the dung that the animal leaves behind. In mob grazing you stock animals so tight that you should ideally have a dung pad every 10 feet!

Then the bedding and slurry are put out on your winter fodder grounds to top up those Ps and Ks. That's my understanding anyway.

You will still have a certain amount of p & k offtake go out the gate in the form of meat, milk etc. Stock don't make p & k.
Slurry/ dung from stock fed on forage grown on low index p&k ground is going to be low in p & k.
The straw will be a help in replacing some but where will the rest come from?

yosemitesam1

White Clover wrote: »

You will still have a certain amount of p & k offtake go out the gate in the form of meat, milk etc. Stock don't make p & k.
Slurry/ dung from stock fed on forage grown on low index p&k ground is going to be low in p & k.
The straw will be a help in replacing some but where will the rest come from?

A bit of chemical p or k to maintain soil levels isn't the worst thing you could put out.
To get the most out of it with minimal effect on soil biology ideally you would know rough off takes in milk/liveweight versus bought in straw and meal.
Take regular tissue/soil samples to see what plants actually have available to them as well as what the soil sample says.
And from that aim to keep things stable with a topup of artificial fert. But it might not actually be needed as the soil testing system oversimplifies soils.
Also in the index system, 3 is to maximize yields. In index 2 the plant isn't deficient just it must divert more energy to the soil which means lower yields. But the soil gains, finding that balance that works best on you're farm is the challenge. Messing about leaving gaps with dung/fert (and maybe sample these) is probably the only way to find what suits you.
Cutting n and increasing sward diversity would do an awful lot on its own though even with normal p+k applications

keryl

For milk I read that certain tab roots work well. Newman Turner writes about it in Fertility Pastures in very good trials.