Horse Manure As Fertilizer: How To Apply And Fertilize The Land? What Plants Is It Good For? What Is Better Than A Cow? Top Dressing In Autumn And Spring

2024 Author: Beatrice Philips | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-18 12:09

Optimal plant development involves not only care, but also fertilizing with fertilizers, it can be both mineral and organic fertilizers. Horse manure is especially valuable from organic matter - an ideal remedy for almost any soil and culture . It is almost impossible to get it fresh, unless you have a horse on your own farm or stables nearby. However, progress does not stand still, and now you can find horse manure in liquid or granular form. But why is this fertilizer so valuable?

Description and composition

Horse manure is a powerful catalyst that affects the plant environment . When fresh, it is a fairly compact heap due to the relatively low humidity. Manure collected in stalls or corrals, most often litter, consisting of a mixture of excrement with sawdust, straw or other vegetation intended for the litter, but it can also be litterless, such manure occurs in stables equipped with a urine drainage system.

Sawdust and shavings of coniferous trees are very popular for use as bedding, since, in addition to having excellent absorbent properties, they muffle a specific odor and act as an antiseptic, negatively affecting the activity of bacteria that can cause various diseases.

When grazing over a large enough area, manure can dry out or dry completely even before it is found. Despite this condition, it is just as beneficial for plants.

Although water is the main component of excrement, they also contain many other substances in different proportions - on average, per kilogram of fresh manure comes out:

• 230 g of organic matter, which contains partially digested cellulose, intestinal enzymes and various acids;
• 6 g of various nitrogen compounds;
• 5 g of potassium oxide;
• 4 g of calcium oxide;
• 3 g of phosphorus oxide.

Fresh excrement in the soil behaves quite aggressively and, if overlooked, can harm plants . After decomposition, they become excellent organic matter, which saturates the soil with humic acids and various microelements.

At first, the manure contains not very much nitrogen, but in the process of decomposition it actively begins to be released from organic matter, as a result, the benefits of fertilization do not appear in the first year, but accumulate gradually.

For maximum benefit for planting in a summer cottage, you need to follow simple rules for using this wonderful organic matter

1. The application rate for manure for all types of soils and crops is approximately equal, 6 kilograms of excrement is needed per square meter. A larger amount is not required, as you can simply "burn" the earth.
2. If it is impossible to weigh the fertilizer, you can use an ordinary 10 liter bucket. A bucket incomplete by one eighth of its volume will contain 6 kilograms of pure manure, and if the manure is with sawdust, then a full bucket will weigh 5 kilograms.
3. The most optimal time to apply manure in order to fertilize the land will be autumn. It is best to add manure after harvesting for continuous digging of the site. This option will allow the fresh manure to gradually decompose and will increase the effect of feeding in the spring.

What is better than a cow?

Horse manure contains low acidity, the soil does not sour from it . Horse manure, in comparison with cow and pig manure, contains much less weeds and putrefactive residues, and the effect of its application lasts much longer.

The main feature of horse excrement is the ability to improve the condition of the soil, regardless of its type. In light soils, manure prolongs moisture retention, while heavy soils make it looser.

Horse manure is more effective than all other types in increasing soil fertility, due to its structure, it decomposes faster and warms the soil faster . This feature allows you to arrange wonderful "warm" beds, especially during cold and short summers in greenhouses and hotbeds for growing thermophilic vegetable crops such as melons and nightshades.

Views

The peculiarity of horse manure is its long overheating, which allows this fertilizer to accumulate useful substances in the soil. Top dressing can be applied in any form - fresh, humus, or organic matter created on the basis of manure.

Fresh

Fresh manure is not fed, only introduced into the soil. This is done in the fall, after complete harvesting of the site from the crop, plant tops and weeds .… For each square meter of arable land, 6 kilograms of fresh manure is introduced, which is then plowed. In another way, you can make beds with manure in the fall, dig up and cover with a film or any other covering material. So the soil for planting crops by the spring will be ready, and you will need to add some other mineral fertilizers or ash.

Liquid

Horse manure in liquid form is a concentrate, usually in plastic 5-liter containers.

The effectiveness of use is exactly the same, but due to the fact that it is diluted with water, the beneficial effect is faster.

Fertilizer in liquid form can be done independently, it is not difficult, but it will take time to insist. It is done in two ways.

1. " Horse brew ". The infusion is prepared with nettles. Fresh nettle is stuffed into a container, filled with water and infused under a lid for three days. After that, fresh horse manure is added in a ratio of 1: 10, that is, 10 parts of nettle infusion are taken for one part of the manure, everything is thoroughly mixed and infused under the lid for another two days. After this time, the nettle is thrown away, and you can water the plantings with the infusion or use it to spray the plants, it will only benefit them.
2. Slurry preparation … The method is very simple, but only if you have the opportunity to get fresh manure in the form of slurry. In a container, the slurry is diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 6 and can be immediately used to feed the plants. This is especially useful for nightshade crops such as tomatoes or eggplant during the growing season. Slurry perfectly fills the soil with nitrogen and potassium.

Granulated

The use of fresh horse manure seems to be quite difficult, especially if there is no horse for personal use or there are no stables nearby. Delivery can be difficult, expensive and time consuming. In such a case, it was invented granular fertilizer. Horse manure in this form is granules, they are of natural origin, retain all the same properties and have the same benefits as other types of this organic matter.

The big advantage of granules is that the weed seeds become unviable during processing and will not cause trouble when using this type of feeding. The granular fertilizer is poured with water in the proportions indicated in the instructions . A certain time is given for the organic matter to be infused. Sediment may form, but it is not harmful to plants.

Before use, the infusion is thoroughly mixed, the plantings are fed in the amount indicated in the instructions for each type of plant.

Application features

The use of horse manure as mulch is the most rational way to use top dressing. So you can solve several problems at once:

• when watering, enrich the soil with useful elements;
• protect the soil from excessive drying out;
• when laying the mulch in a thick layer, weeds do not germinate.

As mulch, humus from horse manure mixed with sawdust, straw or hay in equal proportions is used

Mulching is suitable for all crops, for fruit trees and flowers in flower beds.

Many flowers such as roses, peonies and others need constant feeding and good soil. Horse manure improves the quality and structure of the soil, which is why it is better to prepare a place for planting them in the fall, and plant or transplant them in the spring, since the overheated manure will gradually give the plants nutrients.

For fruit trees and shrubs manure is used in liquid form or fresh. In its fresh form, it is introduced into the soil in a near-trunk circle, at a distance of 30-50 centimeters from the trunk, and carefully dig up the soil without touching the roots. To use slurry, a shallow groove is dug 30 centimeters from the trunk and slurry is poured into it. After the liquid has been absorbed into the soil, the groove is covered with earth.

For feeding berry crops excrement is used only in liquid form. Watered with diluted infusion during the entire fruiting period. Top dressing is needed to increase the yield and sweetness of the berries.

Depending on whether it is spring or winter, for garlic use a variety of feeding. For summer garlic, warm beds are made in autumn, and winter ones are spilled with slurry after planting and fed in spring.

For seedlings it is best to use "horse mash" or slurry. They saturate plants with essential elements, enhance growth and disease resistance.

For thermophilic cucumbers, melons, watermelons gardeners make warm beds in greenhouses or hotbeds, which makes it possible to increase the fruiting period of cucumbers and melons, especially in regions with short summers. The next year, a warm bed is ideal for nightshades, especially tomatoes.

When manure overheats in the first year of application, a large amount of nitrogen is released, which leads to an excessive growth of green mass in tomatoes, so it is better not to plant them on freshly fertilized beds.

However, despite all the benefits of horse manure, there are situations in which it is better to refuse to use it:

1. Plaque on the surface of excrement . This is how the vital activity of the fungus manifests itself, which leads to the loss of the ability to decompose normally. Such organic matter warms up very badly and is not suitable for use in warm beds.
2. Litter-free manure is not suitable for heated beds . Pure manure decomposes very quickly, releasing a lot of heat and ammonia fumes, and if the soil pad is not thick enough, the roots of the seedlings can be burned.
3. Very carefully, manure should be introduced into the soil for planting potatoes . Horse manure, like any other, can be a carrier of scab. Not all potato varieties are resistant to this disease, so the risk of infection is quite high.
4. Heavy soil in the greenhouse . It seems that there is no difference inside the greenhouse with dense soil or outside, but this is fundamentally wrong. Due to the density of the soil, the decomposition of manure is slower and ammonia fumes in a closed room can harm the root system of plants more than in the open air.

Storage rules

Proper storage of manure minimizes the loss of useful organic matter, and nitrogen is one of the valuable components. When interacting with the air, this component begins to evaporate, which means that a storage method is needed in which the access of air to manure will be minimized.

Many gardeners solve this problem in different ways, but the most optimal is the creation of a pile or compost pit

1. Stacking … To begin with, we prepare a place on the site suitable for storage, put there a layer of 20-30 centimeters thick peat mixed with earth. Everything must be tamped tightly. Then we put manure on a layer of peat, which is trampled down just as tightly, the layer of manure should not exceed a layer of peat. Similarly to the first, we make the third layer, and alternate peat with manure up to a stack height of about a meter high. The last layer should be a mixture of peat and soil. From above, everything is covered with straw, hay, plastic wrap or dense covering material. In the event that there is little manure, the ratio of the height of the layers of peat and excrement is 1 to 4.
2. Compost pit … The principle of creating a compost pit is exactly the same as that of a pile, all the difference is that peat and manure are placed in the pit, trampled and covered with a film on top.

Even if everything is done correctly, over time, substances such as nitrogen and phosphorus are lost, and superphosphate is added to minimize losses when laying compost.

Horse manure is a very useful organic matter, but it must be used in moderation and correctly, then your plantings will invariably please with a high yield, and the soil will become ideal.