Garden, horse manure, and poor results

[jcummins]

3 years ago in the fall, I put four tractor buckets of very old aged what I thought was horse manure. It was very black and looked like it had been there for years. This came from a training barn for horses a couple of miles from me. The next two years the garden has not done as well as it had. It may be something else, but the event of putting that on the garden coincides with the poorer results. By poor, tomatoes, beans, just every thing isn't growing up to par.

How can I correct this?

 

[JerryK]

How did it taste? Was it salty... ??? [ sorry, somedays I just can't help myself .... ]

 

[smstonypoint]

How can I correct this?

Any answers you receive here are going to be guesses -- some may be better than others, but they are still going to be guesses.

You need to collect soil samples and have them tested in order to identify your problem(s).

Steve

 

[jcummins]

Any answers you receive here are going to be guesses -- some may be better than others, but they are still going to be guesses.

You need to collect soil samples and have them tested in order to identify your problem(s).

Steve

Exactly what I told my wife that this would be the response.

 

[jcummins]

How did it taste? Was it salty... ??? [ sorry, somedays I just can't help myself .... ]

Yer so far north the cold has impacted you turning you into the devil.

 

[dgeesaman]

Horse manure contains everything the horses ate. If their hay was sprayed with broadleaf killer, it can persist in the manure and do damage to the garden. After 3 years though I'm not sure that's the issue.

You might want to the "green bean test" Killer Compost - the Green Bean Herbicide Test. Just Tooling Around blog post.

 

[RalphVa]

dgeesaman is right. It's pyridine herbicide that's the really bad stuff. It can persist for years in manure or compost that doesn't get stirred up well and exposed to air.

I normally don't recommend this, but I'd rototil the crap out of your garden to well expose all the soil/manure to air. Then put some compost or manure or even just non-woody mulch on it that you know didn't come from animals that have grazed on grass treated with pyridine herbicides. Grazon on one. There are perhaps 2 or 3 other brands by other manufacturers that contain it.

Ralph

 

[jcummins]

Given this was old...I mean really old pile I pulled from, I'd guess 10+ years....and the fact it was 2 seasons ago we put it on the garden, just not sure.

Something has occurred for sure. I'm going to look into a soil test.

 

[jaydee325]

Horse manure contains everything the horses ate. If their hay was sprayed with broadleaf killer, it can persist in the manure and do damage to the garden. After 3 years though I'm not sure that's the issue.

You might want to the "green bean test" Killer Compost - the Green Bean Herbicide Test. Just Tooling Around blog post.

Dang!

I've been working a compost pile since early spring with the intent of adding it to the garden this fall.

With all the rain we have had, the lawn has done very well. I collected a fair amount of clippings and added them to the pile. Of course the lawn has been treated with weed killer.

Just set up the herbicide test. I guess worst case is I can use the compost pile to fill in low spots in the lawn.

 

[WM75Guy]

The Dow products Chaparrel and GrazonNext are widely used for hay around here and contain aminopyralid. One of the selling points is it's residual affects. It passes thru the horse unchanged and will definitely pass from the manure to your soil. Composting will not destroy it. The coastal hay I buy has been sprayed with Chaparrel to kill out the Bahai grass. After I spread it in my pastures they have less weeds and Bahai than the ones that don't get any manure, which is one advantage to spreading manure instead of having it hauled off.