Onions and manure

[tootles]

My mountain of manure finally arrived yesterday afternoon. I have onions growing from seed in the coldframe (shallots to follow) and 150 sets waiting to go out. I was planning to manure the onion bed today - will they be happy with it? I thought maybe a good layer of manure, rotavated into the soil would de the job. Also, how long should I leave it (if I do need to leave it) to settle before planting out my sets? Ideally I would like to get them out tomorrow.....

I know carrots don't like manure - is there anything else that won't like it??

[SarzWix]

There is a theory that says onions can be more prone to white-rot when grown in manure, but I don't know if that means fresh manure I know Snadger has had problems with white-rot, so he may have better info than me!
Apart from carrots, I think parsnips don't like it either.

[gojiberry]

'Fresh manure' should not be used on any crops as the initial chemical process actually inhibits a plants ability to absorb nutrients. Or so I once read. The ideal is a least 9 months old and preferably over a year.

Ian

[tootles]

This pile is all over 1 year old. Black and (mostly) crumbly, with the odd sticky and slightly wiffy bits.

[bobleponge]

If its over a year old, I would have no worries in putting it in the soil and getting your onions in. Thats exactly what I did last year and mine worked fine. If anything my manure wasnt even a year old, and I had no problems. This is only my experience and I may have been lucky, but based on that, I would definitely do it again.

[colser]

i'll 2nd that, last year i planted my onion sets on top of a few inches of year old manure, (didn't bither digging it in as i leave that for the worms to do). result was a bumper crop, still have enough strung up in the garage to last the next couple of months

[tootles]

Colser - you planted them straight on to the manure?? not the soil???

[Snadger]

Once manure is well rotted it is odourless, friable and similar to potting compost!