I'll be moving onto my new 80 acres in a coupla months. The land has been used for hay for many years, so that the soil is low in humus. I'm thinking that the first thing I need to do is bring in a mountain of compostable material. I think that a good 20% of my summer is going to be spent in gathering compost material.

I have two tractors - one with a bucket. I also have a suburban. I'm thinking that the ultimate would be to get a big farm truck with a dump. But a farm truck would probably be too high to load with somebody else's tractor.

My dad makes trailers - and might even make one with a dump.

Anybody haul a lot of compost materials? What do you haul it with?

What would a truck with a dump go for?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 20, 2001

Answers

Response to hauling manure and straw

For the amount of acreage you are talking about I'd suggest green manure instead. Hauling enough manure to make much difference on that kind of scale will take a longggg time. You can get several green manure crops a year to turn under. You will probably end up adding more tons of organic matter in this manner. You can also get at least one crop of legumes in per year(fixes nitrogen). If you happen to have a dairy as a neighbor you can get lots of manure probably for free....then you would need a manure spreader. I'd only use the manure in areas that it would be difficult to turn under a green manure crop. Can't help you on the price of a truck...sorry.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), February 20, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

I'd definitely agree about green manure - no transport cost, and you'd need to haul a LOT of truckloads to put as much on an acre as you can grow. However, there can be circumstances where it's worth importing manure - not for acreage, but for gardens and maybe home orchards - most particularly where you're spotting it (say around a tree) rather than broadcasting it all over. Dairies or feedlots or shearing sheds (large scale sheep operations, as in Australia) as above are a good example, as are any intensive animal operations close by - also including pig or poultry.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), February 20, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

I'm a pretty avid no-dig guy. I was thinking of some green manures that I would cut and throw on the compost pile.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 20, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

Maybe you could offer to let any nearby neighbors with manure dump on your property for free, or just see if they need anywhere to "store" any excess cattle for a few months-in exchange for the poo!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

I figure that all that hay being hauled off the land for so many years took a great deal of the organic matter away from the land. So I need to haul some organic matter back in!

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 20, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

Paul, How far are you from town? The reason I ask is during fall clean-up around here they look for places to dump many truck loads of leaves. I usually take seven or so. Thats how I made my garden beds and thats how I'm making dirt for the greenhouse. Another thought is go to your local township and "volunteer" to take yard waste from the residents, they haul it to you. I haven't done that yet as I'm not quite ready but will do so next year.

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), February 20, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

Paul, The best thing that I can think of to help you spread the manue would be to rent/borrow/make a manure spreader. I know that some of the dairy farmers here and in Pa. use them. Sincerely, Ernest www.communities.msn.com/livingoffthelandintheozarks

-- Ernest in the Ozarks (espresso42@hotmail.com), February 21, 2001.

Response to hauling manure and straw

I talked to my brother last night. He works for my dad. He says that they made a trailer for just this purpose last year. A guy loads his tractor into the trailer, and he goes to farms and loads the trailer with manure. He then hauls the manure to where he wants it and the trailer has a power dump and dumps the manure.

The trailer is built to be low enough to accomodate how far up the bucket on the trailer can reach.

He says that he can make the trailer so it can double as a stock trailer too.

The trailer can haul ten tons and he'll provide the manure panels and the stock panels.

By brother tells me that if I bought a truck that could do half of this, I would have to spend $500 or more per year just on licensing it. Then there would be the insurance. With a trailer, the license will cost about $40 per year.

So I'm getting a trailer!

Thanks for your comments everybody!

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 21, 2001.

Paul:

My recommendation would be to get with your local Ag Agent to have soil samples done. You may have more organic material in the soil than you think due to the growth and death of roots. However, when you do haul off hay, you haul off minerals, so you may have to have some spread, along with lime.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 21, 2001.

Paul

What kind of hay was grown? And is it still growing? If it was a legume of any kind, the soil will have nitrogen already. Reguardless of the type of hay that was grown, if any of it still grows in a decent amount, just cut and use in place of straw for compost.

I also recommend green manure crops, but rather then cutting then composting, let it lay where you cut it. It will get thicker on the ground with every cutting as the year goes. Then at the end of the year when you make the last cutting (but not so late that the ground can't be worked still), have the locals dump all unwanted fall leaves & clippings in the same area, as well as have manure brought from a local farm (dairy, poultry, pig, stockyard, or sale barn after the animal sales). Till it all in and let it sit for the winter. This makes for only one tilling (rather then several, each after a cutting of green manure), and you still don't have to haul much of anything.

This is only my 2 cents.

Good luck

animalfarms

-- animalfarms (jwlewia@indy.net), February 27, 2001.

Just a variety of grasses is growing there now. The guy that owned the property previously would hose everything down with 2-4D. So no legumes at all.

I'm reluctant to cut and leave the hay on the ground because the nitrogen will escape into the air.

The property has been used for hay only for years, and I'm thinking that I should continue to harvest the hay and start to run lots of cattle on the property. The cows will harvest and process the hay in much the same way as you propose: cut the hay and leave it on the ground. The remaining hay I'll keep and have the cows put this back on the ground through the winter. :)

This will certainly improve the soil over the years, but the soil is so bad, I want to improve it faster.

The trailer that my brother is making has a power dump on it. I'm planning on doing the Salatin "pigaerator" thing: lay down some straw mixed with pig feed, then layers of manure and more straw ... then turn some pigs loose with the pile. The pigs will root through the pile, turning it as they go.

When the pile(s) are "done", I'll spread them onto sections of the field.

I'm reluctant to get too carried away with legumes because it can be problematic for cattle.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 27, 2001.

Around here we are not supposed to pasture anything on fields in which we are going to cut and bale hay. Hay fields are empty of animals. Just a thought.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), February 28, 2001.

"Around here we are not supposed to pasture anything on fields in which we are going to cut and bale hay. Hay fields are empty of animals."

Why is that? Manures on the hay?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 28, 2001.