Neutralising horse manure PH

[TastyFrost]

Hi, how can I make 1 year old horse manure suitable for plants? at the moment its too acidic, is the a fool proof way of making any manure of compost suitable without accidentally making it too alkaline? thanks in advance

 

[jaykush]

compost it

 

[magiccannabus]

pH is not especially relevant in organic gardening, but manures should really be composted as Jaykush said. If you can't do that, maybe you should buy some composted manure from a garden center. If it is one year old though, it's probably broken down somewhat already.

 

[JackTheGrower]

1 year old and acidic? How did you determine that please.

 

[VerdantGreen]

should already be well composted at that age, but you wouldnt want to use it in a potting mix for weed at more than 10-20%. the dolomite lime will sort out the pH.

is it from horses bedded in straw or wood shavings?? (straw is better)

 

[roots]

just how big is this pile of horse $ht, and when did you last try to mess with it? try getting to the inside of the pile, you might find that there is some good compost already.

 

[maryjohn]

You coul just top dress it... And compost the rest.

 

[ganja din]

Field dried, or otherwise aged horse manure pH is fine for use with cannabis, it needs no adjustment. Field dried h.manure has already been 'microbial processed' (FWIW, not composted) so it won't be phytotoxic.

GL

 

[TastyFrost]

Hi, thanks for all your relpys. Used a PH tester to work out the PH, im not sure why its so high, I used some of it along with some composted food(potato peel,carrot,ect) for plants not long ago and it killed them stone dead, I then tested the PH. Like Verdant said I should have used it as a 10-20% mix not 100%, Why is this needed does too much organic nutes kill the plants? I think I'll get some lime

 

[ganja din]

Here is how you test pH of media, manure, compost, etc:


From Cornell U. Compost Science and Engineering:

(if you only have an oven which can only go down to 150F then that's fine. Just use less time in the oven, maybe 18-20 hours, not 24 hours.)

"Monitoring Compost pH"
http://compost.css.cornell.edu/monitor/monitorph.html

Compost Extractions

Using a calibrated meter or pH paper, you can measure pH in a compost extract made by mixing compost with distilled water. It is important to be consistent in the ratio of compost to water and to account for the initial moisture content of the compost, but there is no universally accepted protocol specifying these procedures.

One approach is to read the pH in oven-dried samples that have been reconstituted with distilled water.

1. Spread compost in a thin layer in a pan, and dry for 24 hours in a 105-110°C oven.

2. Weigh or measure 5 g samples of oved-dried compost into small containers.

3. Add 25 ml distilled water to each sample.

4. Mix thoroughly for 5 seconds then let stand for 10 minutes.

5. Read the pH with a calibrated meter or with pH paper and record as compost pH in water, or pHw.

An alternative is to measure pH in samples that have not been dried. In this case, the amount of water that you add will need to vary to compensate for the varying moisture content of the compost. You will still need to dry some of the compost in order to measure moisture content, but you can take the pH readings on samples that haven't been altered by drying.

1. Calculate the % moisture of your compost:

a) Weigh a small container.

b) Weigh 10 g of compost into the container.

c) Dry the sample for 24 hours in a 105-110°C oven, or for 5 minutes in a microwave oven. If you use a microwave oven, place a beaker containing 100 ml of water in the oven during the drying to protect the oven's magnetron.

d) Reweigh the sample, subtract the weight of the container, and determine the moisture content using the following equation:

• M = ((Ww-Wd)/Ww) x 100
• in which:
• M = moisture content (%) of compost sample
• WW = wet weight of the sample, and
• Wd = weight of the sample after drying.

2. Use the % moisture to figure out how much water to add.
For example, if your compost sample is 40% moisture, you will compensate by adding only 60% of the water you would need if the sample were air dried (0.60 x 5 ml = 3 ml water needed).

3. Weigh or measure 5 g samples of compost into small containers.

4. Add the calculated amount of distilled water to each sample.

5. Mix thoroughly for 5 seconds.

6. Let stand for 10 minutes.

7. Read the pH with pH paper or a calibrated meter and record as compost pH in water, or pHw.

HTH.

P.S. I use a "Ranco" food dehyrtor to test pH, the ideal temp is 105F-110F.

 

[ganja din]

Why is this needed does too much organic nutes kill the plants?

It depends upon the state of the OM (Organic Matter) and the % available nutrients, IMO this was not your problem, but I could be wrong. If your 'compost' was not fully matured, then it was most likely "phytotoxic", and that is what did damage. Not the pH. Or, if the media was too dense it could have been so anaerobic as to hurt the plant. But I would guess at phytoxicity.

If you need to adjust pH I suggest caclidic lime and dolomite lime mix, or just c.lime if you don't' have both.

 

[ganja din]

Hi, thanks for all your relpys. Used a PH tester to work out the PH, im not sure why its so high

I assume you didn't measure the pH correctly, or the h.maure was fresh and in a anaerobic pile where unhelpful microbes abound. I'm not trying to be rude, please see my post giving directions on how to test pH of different substances (not liquids).

HTH

P.S. Did you get the answer you wanted from your mycorrhizae thread?