by However, in order for it to become such, it is not enough to simply collect excrement, pack it into bags and sell it to summer residents who are hungry for rich harvests.
About harm and benefit
If you plan to use manure as a fertilizer, it must be rotted:
- because fresh wood releases substances harmful to plants when it decomposes;
- undecomposed organic matter is in a form that is difficult for plants to digest;
- fresh manure contains weed seeds;
- fresh manure contains pathogenic microflora (according to WHO, almost a hundred pathogens of various human and animal diseases) and helminths – the eggs of most species survive in manure for up to 3 years, and some even longer;
- all chemicals used in veterinary medicine also end up in manure;
- The high temperature of “burning” fresh product can damage the roots.
By adding such “fertilizer” you will not only fail to improve the nutrition of the plants, but you may harm both them and yourself.
Fresh, unburned horse manure is used to create warm beds and greenhouses – not as a fertilizer, but as a “heating element”. It is placed in the bed at a sufficiently large depth, and for planting, a layer of soil is poured on top of the hot manure layer, the thickness of which is necessary to accommodate their root system. Such manure will only become food in subsequent years.
In order for manure to become a valuable fertilizer, it must be properly prepared.
Manure for free?
Today, you can often find ads for the sale of horse manure in bags for a small amount (from 50 rubles) or even for free, for self-pickup. But is it worth rushing to buy such organic fertilizer and why is such a valuable product given away for free?
Horse riding is one of the types of modern profitable tourist business. Naturally, stables are located in close proximity to the consumer: near large cities. In the village, there is hardly a demand for romantic horse rides or birthday celebrations at the stable. And the cost of land near large cities is high.
In order for manure to become a valuable fertilizer, it must be carefully prepared: stored for at least a year (and better and correct – 3-4 years) in piles laid in a special way (hot, cold or hot-pressed) on a concrete platform (according to the requirements of the environmental legislation of the Russian Federation).
Horse riding is one of the types of modern profitable tourism business
In properly formed piles, organic matter decomposes, at which the required temperature destroys pathogenic organisms and weed seeds, and valuable nitrogen is maximally preserved, rather than being ineptly lost into the atmosphere. In this process, all organic matter, including the underlying material, is completely mineralized and transformed into a form easily assimilated by plants – humus.
For stable owners, creating conditions for producing high-quality organic fertilizer is an unnecessary non-core expense, and throwing the “good stuff” into the nearest ravine is fraught with a fine. For them, horse manure is not a valuable fertilizer, but a by-product that interferes with business, disrupting the tourist pastoral with its appearance and smell.
Therefore, in a bag under the guise of well-rotted horse manure, you can be sold fresh, just collected excrement: the owner of horses is faced with the task of quickly getting rid of the waste products of their pets, and not caring about your harvest. Or, on the contrary, they can sell bedding consisting of only hay and sawdust, with two or three horse pellets per bag, for the same reason – the stalls need to be cleaned regularly.
For stable owners, horse manure is not a valuable fertilizer, but an annoying by-product.
If you have the opportunity to buy cheap fresh horse manure and “improve it” yourself (maintain the required conditions for organic decomposition for several years) or plan to create “Russian greenhouses” (with biofuel heating), feel free to buy it. If not, you should look not for a stable, but for a manufacturer of organic fertilizers that buys raw materials from stables and processes them according to all the rules into a useful nutrient supplement for the soil. Today you can buy organic fertilizers from horse manure that have nothing in common with the original product: it is dehydrated and pressed into granules convenient for the gardener.
Granular fertilizer from horse manure
