From: soilfoodweb@aol.com
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 22:05:53 EST
What is needed is an understanding of the form of N in poultry manure.
Most weeds require high nitrate levels in order to germinate rapidly. That
is likely the signal that tells them to jump on up.
Fresh, raw poultry manure is HIGH in nitrate. Therefore, weeds are selected.
There aren't many raw humic substances in manure. Chicken digestive systems
are the wrong environment to allow humic substances to develop. Nitrate, on
the other hand, is normally quite high in manures.
When you compost manure, the nitrates are taken up by the bacteria and fungi
and immobilized in organism biomass. thus, there may be the same amount of N
present, but in a very different, not-leachable form. A form that weeds
cannot access, and therefore does not help weeds grow.
Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand
"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well,
but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things
turn out." -- Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic
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