Horse Manure Question

[chris]

Hello !

Just noticed on freecycle someone has a shed load of well rotted horse manure, with chopped flax - and some fresh manure too on my local freecycle.

What's flax? Any good - I've spare to store it in old compost sacks, and "owt for nowt" seems good to me!

[Jeanied]

Flax is what they grow to get linseed (and linen fibres). Should be fine to use as long as it is chopped - linen is a pretty classy fibre!

[zazen999]

Please test the manure before you spread it on your plot.



Still reeling from our discovery that ours has Aminopyralid at the weekend.

[chris]

Any info on how to test?

[zazen999]

Herbicide contamination of manure and straw

The quickest way is probably on here; or try putting a spare tomato in it and seeing if the leaves start growing all gnarled....

[Snadger]

Herbicide contamination of manure and straw

The quickest way is probably on here; or try putting a spare tomato in it and seeing if the leaves start growing all gnarled....

How did you test yours Zaz? Must be soul destroying to find its affected .................and flaming hard work to take it off the plot. Aminopyralid is a selective weedkiller for broad leaved weeds in turf so at least sweetcorn, being a grass should be unaffected.....possibly?

Ps Just read the article and can't for the life of me understand how brassicas are tolerant?

[zazen999]

Not tested, that costs £200 [thanks DOW ]

We had weedy gnarled growth and thought it was the frosts; so I cloched a row and waited for a few weeks. After then [at the weekend] I removed the cloche and found just taller weedy gnarled growth. I spoke to my lottie neighbour and all his are the same; with the worst affected being where he had stashed the manure last summer and the least affected furthest away from the stashed area. Then spoke to a couple of newbies as I saw them shovelling and they had mulched some spuds 2 weeks ago, and the top 4 inches were all gnarled. Then asked around and everyone that had manure from the local farmer had the same problem.

Then we inspected the broadies and the ones that had manure mixed in had shrivelled curled leaves, and the rasps that were mulched had the same.

I came home, googled again and the damage to all 3 crops is identical to the photos online.

So went back and demulched the rasps [can't lose those!], and started digging up the spuds and raking out the manure from their bed.

I have no idea why brassicas are unaffected [in light contamination], but lottie neighbour had used it on his brassica bed and no damage whatsoever. Also, my leeks which had some mulching were unaffected.

Thus today, all my alliums are coming over into the [now] joint allium and brassica bed and any spare spuds and beans are going into clean soil. thank goodness we didn't mulch ALL our beds. Reverse crop rotation as both were in those beds in the last 2 years; but needs must.

Have contacted DOW and will continue to rake out and remove all this poison and await them coming to collect it.

[Snadger]

I suspect my beds are contaminated..........bugger. I've had that many loads from different sources and different areas are mulched accordingly, but some of the symptoms are there...........

[zazen999]

Bugger. I feel the pain.

DOW rang me back this morning, whilst I was at the lottie shovelling more of it off my plot.

Hopefully they can come and remove it - once I get to have a conversation I'll send you his number, if you want to get it removed...

[Snadger]

JA's seem to be thriving on it though?

[FIREMAN627]

zazen could you let me have the number for dow , should have asked for it when i spoke to them but did not realise then that they would remove the stuff. just to add my brassica/ alliums are also doing well but what surprises me most is my tunnel cucumbers are also ok in the sh*t,scuse the ...... but it makes you want to do damage dont it.