Despite the fact that mineral fertilizers contain more nutrients than organic ones, it is organic fertilizers that are safe for the environment and improve the properties of the soil.
Growing vegetables in your own garden is good because it allows you to control what fertilizers and in what quantities are used to feed crops. If you are committed to the environment and don’t want to feed your family “chemicals,” give preference to organic fertilizers.
Why organic?
The main advantage of organic fertilizers is that they consist entirely of natural ingredients. This means you don't have to worry about overfeeding your soil and plants with minerals.
Although organic matter cannot boast such a high concentration of nutrients as “chemistry,” it saturates the soil and guarantees good nutrition for plants during the period of active growth.
The application of organic fertilizers increases the effectiveness of mineral ones, so they can be used in combination.
Another obvious plus is that you can prepare organic fertilizers yourself, while you will definitely have to fork out the cash for mineral fertilizers.
When to fertilize?
The most effective application of fertilizers is considered to be in the fall, since during the winter they manage to become part of the organic-mineral complex of the soil, make it more fertile and will nourish the plants throughout the next season.
Spring feeding is important for plant nutrition. In spring, organic matter decomposes faster and supplies crops with soluble nutrients. This is necessary during the period of active plant growth in spring and early summer.
Digging requires 2-3 kg of organic fertilizers per 1 sq.m of sandy soil, and 6-8 kg per 1 sq.m of clay soil.
If you farm and have the opportunity to collect manure for fertilizer, consider yourself very lucky because it is a good source of nutrients for your garden. This nitrogen-potassium fertilizer is effective for 2-3 years on sandy soils and 5-7 years on clay soils.
What kind of manure is suitable for fertilizer?
Please note that fresh manure can only be used on empty beds during the autumn digging of the garden.
Rotted manure is applied under the plants. It is a homogeneous mass of black color. If individual straws are visible in the manure, this means that it has not yet been rotted enough.
It is worth distinguishing manure from humus. If you keep manure and allow it to rot for too long, this reduces the concentration of organic matter and nitrogen by 2-3 times.
How to store manure?
Manure should not be stored scattered around the site. The manure pile should be dense and always moist, especially in dry, hot, windy weather.
It is necessary to apply manure to the soil within one day.
Slurry
To prepare slurry, manure is diluted with water in a ratio of 1:5.
This fertilizer is used to water the compost heap and feed all crops. This is an excellent fertilizer for which your garden will thank you.
Slurry is especially pleasing to cabbage and all kinds of root vegetables.
Compost is a good alternative to manure, especially if you cannot buy it or collect it on your farm.
High-quality rotted compost can replace mineral fertilizers. Of course, if you add it in sufficient quantities.
The size of the compost heap in relation to the area of the beds is determined at the rate of 1:10.
What to put in a compost bin?
- manure,
- feces,
- plant tops,
- sleeping tea leaves,
- eggshell,
- fallen leaves,
- paper,
- soil,
- sawdust,
- weeds,
- tree bark,
- turf,
- decomposing household waste,
- coffee grounds,
- ash,
- river silt
Plants affected by white rot (sclerotinia), clubroot, wilt (verticillium wilt), hard nut shells, moldy bread, and citrus peels should not be thrown into the compost pit.
How to make compost correctly?
A compost pit is set up on the ground to allow earthworms to go to winter.
The components are placed in stacks up to 1 m high and about 1.5 m wide (the length is not important).
The pile is regularly watered with water or slurry to keep it moist.
The compost pile is covered with turf, soil or grass to prevent drying out. In this case, it is necessary to leave a hole for ventilation.
For the winter, the compost heap is not covered so that it gets thoroughly wet in the autumn rains and freezes in the winter. This will destroy pests and viruses.
To overheat the compost, a temperature of 60°C is required. If the compost is loose, it will heat up on its own.
Wood waste compost
Separately, it is worth mentioning the varieties of compost made from sawdust, twigs and other wood waste. They require a special approach.
To improve the quality of compost, mineral fertilizers are added to it:
- nitrogen fertilizer (ammonium nitrate or ammonium sulfate at the rate of 300 g per 10 kg of weight);
- phosphorus fertilizer (superphosphate at the rate of 1-2 kg per 100 kg of compost or 3 kg of phosphate rock per the same amount of compost).
Often compost from wood waste is prepared together with manure to improve its properties. In general, compost made from tree bark is comparable in quality to black soil.
The bark is placed in a compost pit in crushed form (pieces 1-4 cm).
Wood compost is used exclusively in the fall when digging up the garden. In the spring, the decomposition process will take over the lion's share of nutrients.
Bird droppings are a “golden” nitrogen-containing organic fertilizer, because in terms of efficiency it is much superior to manure, and in terms of speed of action it is comparable to “chemistry”. However, unlike manure, this type of organic matter cannot be called a universal fertilizer.
Disadvantages of bird droppings
The main disadvantage of bird droppings is that it is not suitable for all crops. Before applying this fertilizer, you should carefully study the recommendations for growing the crop.
The second significant drawback of bird droppings is its toxicity. When fresh, it contains water-soluble metabolites that can harm the plant (cause burns, cause disease and even death). In addition, bird droppings contain uric acid, which when broken down produces ammonia. As a result of an overdose, this fertilizer slows down the growth of young plants and leads to the accumulation of nitrates in vegetables.
Bird droppings are added at the rate of no more than 50 g per 1 sq.m.
Another disadvantage of bird droppings is that they quickly lose their quality. When stored in heaps, most of the nitrogen evaporates from it after 1.5-2 months.
Considering that the effectiveness of this fertilizer depends on its storage conditions, it must be dried quickly or composted immediately.
Bird droppings compost
Sawdust, straw, peat, crushed corn stalks, municipal solid waste, lignin, and turf are suitable for composting bird droppings.
For 1 kg of compost add 3-4 g of ammonium nitrate, 8-20 g of 40% potassium salt, 20-25 g of superphosphate.
Compost is applied for autumn digging of soil in the following doses: for potatoes - 200-300 kg per 1 hundred square meters; for other vegetable crops - 300-400 kg per 1 hundred square meters.
The waste products of these eared rodents are comparable in value to manure. Like bird droppings, rabbit droppings should not be placed under plants, as this can cause burns, so they must be composted.
It is permissible to add unrotted compost from rabbit droppings to the beds only on a cloudy autumn or snowy winter day, spreading it in a thin layer.
Heavily decomposed lowland peat is suitable for feeding plants and mulching; high-moor and transitional peat are not suitable for these purposes.
It is worth noting that peat is inferior in quality to the types of organic fertilizers mentioned above. It contains only nitrogen in sufficient quantities, of which plants absorb only 3-5%.
Peat has virtually no effect on the saturation of the soil with elements, but, nevertheless, helps to improve the physical properties of the soil: it makes it looser, warmer, porous, air- and moisture-permeable.
How to use peat?
When applying peat, the composition of the soil should be taken into account.
It makes sense to use peat as a fertilizer on sandy and clay soils in combination with mineral fertilizers. But light and medium loamy soils (with a humus content of 4-5%) do not need this.
On heavy soils that become crusty after rain, peat is used in combination with humus or turf. Together with soil for greenhouses, etc. peat is good as mulch.
It can be applied at any time of the year: both spring and winter. An overdose of peat is impossible, but it is worth considering that when fresh it is toxic, so it is recommended to compost it.
Peat-fecal compost
Composting peat increases nitrogen availability.
The compost heap is organized under a canopy or film cover. The basis of the heap is a layer of peat 40-45 cm thick.
Peat is regularly soaked with feces. To do this, it is necessary to make depressions in the peat layer, where the mass should be poured, after which it is necessary to pour everything on top so that the liquid is completely absorbed.
Since peat-fecal compost matures slowly, it will only become ready for planting in the soil after a year. This compost is applied in the spring at the rate of 2-3 kg per 1 sq.m.
Peat is highly acidic, so when applied to the garden it is neutralized by adding lime or dolomite flour in the proportion of 4-5 kg of flour per 100 kg of compost.
Ash is a cheap and very effective type of organic fertilizer. It is good in acidic soils as this allows it to be neutralized.
Ash contains about 30 elements important for plant nutrition.
Coal ash
Such ash contains little calcium, potassium and phosphorus, but contains about 60% silicon oxides.
Due to its high sulfur content, coal ash is an excellent fertilizer for horseradish, onions, garlic, rutabaga, radishes, mustard, and cabbage.
On the other hand, for the same reason it is not suitable for use on acidic and sandy soils. Since a high concentration of sulfur in the ash leads to the appearance of sulfates, the soil becomes even more acidic. This feature can be used to neutralize saline soil.
Ash grass
This tweed ash is high in potassium. Excellent ash can be obtained by burning potato tops. It contains about 30% potassium, 15% calcium and 8% phosphorus, not to mention a huge number of trace elements. For comparison: the phosphorus content in straw ash does not exceed 6%.
Wood ash
Record holders for potassium content are young trees. The ash of birch wood is considered the most valuable, since it contains high levels of phosphorus, potassium, and calcium.
There is more potassium in the ash of hardwood trees (oak, aspen, poplar, etc.) than in softwood trees (pine, spruce, linden, etc.).
Sawdust
It is best to use sawdust for making compost, because... fresh, while improving the structure of the soil, they simultaneously reduce its fertility. Bacteria that decompose wood actively absorb nitrogen and other nutrients from it, “robbing” the soil.
How to prepare sawdust for application to the soil?
Firstly, the sawdust is allowed to rest for about 2 months. During this time they will begin to decompose.
The sawdust can then be composted. This is done according to the scheme described above. It is necessary to lay out sawdust and other compost components in layers. For example, alternate: a layer of sawdust 30 cm thick and bird droppings a layer of 10 cm.
You can go the other way and saturate the sawdust with solutions of mineral substances. For example, slurry with water (1:10) or ammonium nitrate solution (40 g per 10 liters of water, add to 3 buckets of sawdust).
Before adding sawdust to the soil, it is advisable to mix it with lime (150 g per 10 liters of sawdust). If the soil has already been limed, this is not necessary.
It is advisable to add treated sawdust at the end of summer.
River silt
Silt from the bottom of reservoirs is collected in the summer after the water level has dropped. Any silt is rich in organic substances, but the absolute champion in this regard is sapropel (lake silt).
Sapropel neutralizes acidic soils and retains moisture in light soils. It is applied at the rate of 2-8 kg per 1 sq.m (spread in a thin layer or dig up the ground with it). If the soil is acidic, add lime before applying sapropel.
Lake silt is the only organic fertilizer that can be used for soil sanitation and reclamation.
River silt, unlike sapropel, can be contaminated with mineral or machine oil, and heavy metals.
Grass
Grass can also serve as an excellent fertilizer for plants.
If there is a lack of nitrogen, crops can be fed with nettles, legumes, clover, mustard, radish, woodlice, lettuce, quinoa, amaranth and other plants with a shallow root system. If there is a lack of phosphorus, potassium, and microelements, sweet clover, dandelion, horse sorrel, thistle, and other plants with long taproots will help.
Herbs can be composted, but there is another, faster way to turn them into finished fertilizer - make an herbal infusion.
Place the barrel in a sunny area of the site, fill 1/2 or 3/4 of the volume with crushed raw materials, fill with water and cover with plastic wrap, in which several holes must be made for ventilation.
After 2-3 days, the fermentation process should begin in the barrel. The liquid should become yellow-green and cloudy. Don't be alarmed by the unpleasant smell - it's a sign that everything is going according to plan.
The herbal infusion will be ready in 1-1.5 weeks. When applied to the soil, it will need to be diluted with water in a ratio of 1:10.
This fertilizer can be used for watering and feeding plants all summer. But trees and shrubs, starting from the second half of summer, cannot be fertilized with herbal infusion, since it contains nitrogen, which inhibits the growth of branches and reduces winter hardiness. You can apply herbal solutions to the tree trunks of perennials in late autumn.
Organic fertilizers are environmentally friendly, inexpensive and effective for feeding plants. Be sure to use them in your garden to get a good, healthy harvest.
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Organic fertilizers have been known since the earliest periods of agricultural history.
Three thousand years ago, Chinese and Japanese farmers used organic fertilizers. In the countries of Western and Eastern Europe in the 14th-15th centuries AD, manure began to be used.
In the modern world, 3 billion tons of various organic fertilizers are used annually.
Types of organic fertilizers
Organic fertilizers are fertilizing organic substances of animal, plant, plant-animal and industrial-household origin of varying degrees of decomposition. Organic fertilizers contain large amounts of moisture and a wide range of different nutrients, some in small quantities, which is why they are classified as complete fertilizers. Organic fertilizers, as a rule, are poorly transportable; they are used locally or close to production and are called local fertilizers.
Organic fertilizers include manure (litter, non-litter, slurry), peat, bird droppings, sapropel, composts, household waste, industrial waste (lignin), wastewater residues, green fertilizers, etc.
Manure has a complex multilateral effect on the soil and is a source of ash and. Manure in any form replenishes the supply of mobile nutrients in the soil, improves the circulation of various nutrients in the soil-plant system.
Bird droppings are fast-acting organic. There are:
- litter, formed when poultry are kept on deep, permanent litter;
- litterless droppings, formed during cage keeping of poultry;
- dry droppings- a bulk fertilizer substance formed during the thermal drying of bedding-free liquid manure.
The chemical composition of droppings depends on the type of bird, type of feeding and keeping of the bird.
Bird droppings are used as pre-sowing fertilizer (see). Effective in various crops. It is recommended to use bird droppings when growing plants indoors.
In the year of application, on average, up to 50%, 20% and 70% are absorbed from the litter. The degree of use of nutrients depends on the dose, the granulometric composition of the soil and the biological characteristics of the plants.
In plant growing, peat is used in the preparation of peat humus pots and cubes, as a substrate for greenhouses and as a mulching material.
Sapropel is an organic fertilizer, bottom sediments of freshwater reservoirs. Natural color - from pink to dark brown. When exposed to air, the natural color disappears. The chemical composition of the substance varies even within the same body of water. Sapropel is used on various types of soil as a base and fertilizer.
Hydrolysis (technical) lignin
Hydrolysis lignin is the main waste of the hydrolysis industry. It contains few nutrients, has an acidic reaction and is very poor in microflora, has high moisture capacity and absorption capacity. When it is composted with other organic fertilizers (liquid manure, liquid bird droppings, slurry), fertilizers enriched with basic nutrients with good physical and mechanical properties and high biological activity are obtained. Nitrogen losses are minimal.
Tree bark and sawdust
Wood bark and sawdust can be used as organic fertilizer after composting with manure, slurry and other nitrogen-containing substances (photo). Such composts must meet the following requirements: organic matter content per dry weight of at least 80% with a humidity of no more than 60%, the proportion of humic substances is 10-15% of the total amount of organic matter, pH is at least 5.5, C: N ratio - no more than 30, percentage of content per dry weight - 3.0, - 0.1, - 0.1.
The ratio of composted materials and manure is 1: 1, 2: 1 or 3: 2. Phosphate rock and potassium chloride can be added to the compost.
Household waste (city waste)
Household waste is human waste. On average, one resident of Russia accounts for 0.15-0.25 tons of solid household waste per year.
The main share of municipal solid waste in cities is paper and organic components. The composition of garbage varies with the seasons. Biological waste is characterized by a high degree of biological contamination, can be dangerous from an epidemiological point of view and requires disinfection.
Solid household waste (city garbage) is comparable in nutrient content and fertilizing qualities to litter manure. The rate of mineralization of household waste depends on the presence of food waste in it. If there is a large amount of it, the garbage decomposes quickly and can be used as fertilizer, bypassing composting. When non-food waste predominates (paper, rags, etc.), it decomposes slowly and is used after composting.
Urban waste contains on average, based on dry weight, 0.6-0.7%, - 0.5-0.6%, - 0.6-0.8%.
Urban waste is used as pre-sowing fertilizer, for basic tillage, and in protected greenhouses.
Sewage sludge (SWS)
Sewage sludge accumulates in large cities at treatment plants in the amount of 1.5 to 1% of the volume of all treated water (photo) . The WWS humidity is high - 92-95%. Before use as a fertilizer, WWS is subjected to a variety of processing methods, namely:
Average composition of WWS,% on dry weight |
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From primary settling tanks |
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Activated sludge |
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Digested sludge |
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After thermal drying |
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Along with nutrients, WWS may contain heavy metals, petroleum products, and detergents. Constant monitoring of the composition of WWS is necessary, since their use sharply increases the risk of contamination of agricultural products and the environment with hazardous substances. All other things being equal, it is safer to use WWS on heavy, more humus-rich soils than on light, low-humus soils.
WWS is recommended for fertilizing parks, tree nurseries, lawns, and bast crops. For other crops, WWS is used only with the permission of sanitary and epidemiological stations under the control of the agricultural chemical service. WWS is not used for vegetable crops.
Composts
Compost (from the Latin compositus - “composite”) is an organic fertilizer. It is a decomposed mixture of manure with peat, soil, plant residues, phosphate rock, formed under the influence of microorganisms.
High-quality compost is a homogeneous, dark, crumbly mass with a moisture content of no more than 75%, with a reaction close to neutral, and nutrients in a form easily accessible to plants. (photo)
To prepare composts, various combinations of organic substances are used (manure, bird droppings, sewage sludge, industrial and household waste containing organic matter). Mineral components can be added to the compost mixture: phosphate rock, potash fertilizers, etc.
Composts have good physical and mechanical properties. They are free-flowing, easily transportable, and do not stick to the working parts of agricultural machines and implements.
Composting requires a positive ambient temperature. Optimal humidity conditions and high degree of aeration at the beginning of the process. To accelerate the decomposition of organic matter and reduce the loss of ammonia nitrogen and increase the concentration of nutrients, phosphate rock is added to the compost, and in case of high acidity, lime.
Properly prepared composts have the same fertilizing properties as manure.
Depending on the components, composts are divided into:
- peat manure;
- peat litter;
- peat-liquid;
- peat fecal;
- manure-olignin;
- composts from household waste and prefabricated ones.
Vermicompost (vermicompost)
Vermicompost (vermicompost) is a product of processing manure and various organic wastes by the red Californian worm Eusenia foetieda (photo) .
Vermicompost contains macro- and microelements, is biologically active, contains hormones that regulate plant growth (auxin, gibberellin), important enzymes: catalases, phosphatases, etc. During processing, the number of viruses and salmonella decreases. The red Californian worm can withstand temperatures from 4 to 28 ºC. The preferred acidity of the habitat is 6.5-7.5. The lifespan of a worm is 800-900 days. They reproduce by cocoons; on average, 3.5 individuals hatch from each cocoon.
A normal individual produces up to 200 offspring per year. Worms feed on all organic matter, consisting of 20% cellulose. Some organic substances require preliminary preparation. Thus, cattle manure must first undergo a fermentation process for 6-7 months to achieve the desired pH level; pork manure needs 10-12 months for this. At least 25% sawdust (by weight) is added to bedding-free manure. Every year, the number of worms can increase 4-10 times.
The product produced by worms is a balanced granular organic fertilizer containing (on an absolutely dry basis) 30% humus, 0.8-3.0% nitrogen, 0.8-5% phosphorus, 1.2% potassium, 2-5% calcium.
Verlicompost is used as a base and fertilizer. Recommended as highly effective for closed ground.
Green fertilizers (green manures)
Green fertilizers are fresh plant matter plowed into the soil to enrich it with organic matter and improve the nutrition of subsequent crops. Plants grown with green fertilizers are green manures; the method of enriching soils with them is green manure.
As green manure, legumes are usually used (lupine, seradella, sweet clover, vetch, china, asiragao, etc.), a little less often, mixtures of legumes with cereals (vegetable-oat mixture) or intermediate non-legume crops (mustard, rapeseed, rapeseed, etc.).
The ability of legumes to symbiotically fix atmospheric nitrogen, which contributes to additional enrichment of soils with nitrogen, makes them valuable green manures.
Green fertilizers have the same multifaceted positive effect on soil fertility as well-prepared bedding manure.
1 ton of wet weight contains different amounts of nutrients. Data on the nutrient content in different types of green manure fertilizers and mixed manure are presented in the table “Average data on the nutrient content in 1 ton of wet weight of legume green manure and 1 ton of densely stored mixed manure.”
Average Nutrient Data in 1 ton of wet weight of legume green manure and 1 ton of densely stored mixed manure, according to: |
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Type of fertilizer |
Dry matter, kg |
Grain strawStraw of cereal crops, used as a fertilizer, helps improve the physical and chemical properties of the soil, enhances the activity of microorganisms, their nitrogen-fixing ability, reduces nitrogen losses, increases the availability of phosphates, and increases the humus content in the soil at the level of manure application. Straw at a moisture content of 16% contains on average 0.5% nitrogen, 0.25% phosphorus, 1.0% potassium and 35-40% carbon, as well as small amounts of calcium, magnesium, sulfur and trace elements. The C:N ratio is from 60 to 100, so microorganisms that decompose straw organic matter require additional nitrogen nutrition. To do this, when plowing straw, an additional 0.5-1.5% of nitrogen by its mass is added, i.e. 5-15 kg of nitrogen per 1 ton in the form of mineral or organic fertilizers. Plowing straw with the addition of nitrogen brings the greatest effect in the fall, since the harmful phenolic compounds formed during its decomposition have time to decompose or be washed out of the root layer of the soil during the autumn-winter-spring period. The application of straw with the addition of nitrogen to row crops with a long growing season is especially effective. The systematic use of straw as a fertilizer in crop rotations significantly increases its effectiveness. (photo) Bacterial (microbiological) fertilizersBacterial fertilizers are preparations of highly active microorganisms that improve the nutritional conditions of crops. The most common preparations are those containing nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. Humic preparations (fertilizers based on humic acids)Humic preparations are a group of physiologically active substances that activate the vital activity of soil microorganisms and plants. Their introduction into the soil helps accelerate the processes of humification, improves the water-physical properties and thermal regime of the soil, and stimulates the growth and development of plants. Humic preparations are obtained by alkaline, acid or electroimulsion processing of natural raw materials (peat, coal, caustobioliths, etc.). The preparative forms of humic preparations are diverse - from liquid ballast-free to granular organomineral complex fertilizers. Humic preparations are widely used in the cultivation of flowers, seedlings, potted crops, in the creation and operation of sports lawns, in greenhouse vegetable farms and in the cultivation of field crops. They do not contain toxic components (with the exception of humates from brown coals and sapropels). During certification and registration, humates are tested for safety. The importance of organic fertilizers in intensive farmingIn conditions of intensive farming, the most important task is to reproduce soil fertility and create a positive, deficient balance of nutrients and humus in the soil. The successful solution of this problem depends on the systematic, scientifically based use of organic and mineral fertilizers in crop rotation. That is why the importance of organic fertilizers in agriculture will not decrease even if agriculture is completely satisfied with mineral fertilizers. The experience of world agriculture shows that the higher the farming culture, the more attention is paid to the use of various organic fertilizers. | |||
How to increase soil fertility
What applies to organic fertilizers?
They have a beneficial effect on the composition of the soil and help improve its quality. Such fertilizers, when decomposed, increase the humus layer of the soil, helping to increase its fertility. Currently, preference is given to natural organic fertilizers. They come in two types: animal and plant origin.
Depending on their origin, organic fertilizers have different effects on the soil.
Thus, animals influence the chemical composition of the soil, while plants influence its physical qualities.
Almost all organic fertilizers are complete because they contain nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, microelements, and vitamins. The first place among organic fertilizers is manure.
Manure
This is the so-called stall manure. The composition of manure depends on the type of animal, as well as the material used as bedding (peat, straw, sawdust, wood shavings).
Manure with straw bedding is of high quality and has good structure. Peat is less commonly used as bedding. Peat absorbs feces well and retains ammonia. Sawdust and shavings are less effective.
Manure happens:
1) horse;
3) sheep;
4) pork;
5) rabbit;
6) cattle (cow).
Horse manure has a porous structure and, when decomposed, releases a lot of heat, so it is often used to heat greenhouses. Because horse manure decomposes quickly and warms the soil, it is used on heavy, slow-warming soils. On clay soils, you can make a warm bed using horse manure.
Horse manure should be applied no more than once every 2-3 years at an average depth.
The effect of sheep and goat manure is similar to that of horse manure. They also decompose quickly and produce a lot of heat, which under certain conditions is harmful to plants.
Sheep and goat manure should not be used on light soils.
Cattle manure has a denser structure than horse manure, but it decomposes more slowly and produces less heat. This makes it suitable for all types of soil.
The frequency of applying cow manure depends on the soil: on heavy and damp soils it should be applied no more than once every 3-4 years, on medium soils - once every 3 years. Cow dung is buried shallowly.
On light soils, cow manure is applied once every 2 years and at an average depth.
Pig manure is less favorable. It decomposes slowly and has an unsaturated, watery structure. It contains many useful substances, but in a form unsuitable for plants. Pig manure is “cold”, i.e. the heat transfer from it during decomposition is insignificant. It should not be used on heavy soils, but is suitable for sandy soils.
Rabbit droppings are the leader in terms of nutrient content. But in its pure form it is used extremely rarely. It is included in composts and is also used as a liquid fertilizer. Feeding from rabbit droppings is prepared as follows: 1-2 kg of droppings are diluted in 10 liters of water and allowed to stand until it disperses. Then they dig shallow holes in the ground and add fertilizer at the rate of 1.5 l/m2. Then the holes are filled in.
How to use manure correctly
1. You cannot apply fresh manure to crops, because during its decomposition, gases are formed in the soil that are toxic to the root system, and a lot of heat is released, which can cause the plant to “burn.”
2. You can use manure that has reached a certain stage of decomposition. According to the degree of decomposition, fresh, semi-rotted, rotted manure and humus are distinguished.
3. To obtain rotted material, manure must be stored in the so-called cold way.
Manure is laid in layers on a leveled and compacted area and compacted. Each layer is sprinkled with phosphate rock or peat. The top of the manure pile is covered with a thick layer of peat and dry leaves and left for 4-8 months.
4. Before applying manure to the soil, it should be enriched by adding phosphorus mineral fertilizers.
Humus
Humus is the result of long-term decomposition of manure, leaves, grass, straw, etc.
This is a very mild type of organic fertilizer. Humus is mixed into the soil for seedlings, used in a mixture with mulching materials, incorporated into the soil, and sprinkled under crops.
Liquid manure
Liquid manure, or unlittered, or slurry.
Valued for its quick action and the ability to be used continuously as needed. When using slurry for feeding, it is diluted with water in a ratio of 1: 3-5 and 25-30 g of superphosphate is added. Add at the rate of 1.5-2 l/m2.
Liquid manure feeding is prepared as follows: fill a barrel a quarter full with solid bedding manure, then pour water to the top and leave for 1-2 days, stirring occasionally.
To reduce odor, pulverized silica is added. The plants are watered with the resulting fertilizer.
Bird droppings
A valuable type of organic fertilizer. In terms of nutrient content, bird droppings are superior to all types of manure. In addition, it decomposes quickly and works quickly.
Fresh bird droppings are not added. It is embedded in the soil for autumn digging at the rate of 200-300 g/m2.
Poultry droppings are used to prepare composts or brought to a semi-rotted state, just like manure.
To obtain liquid fertilizer or starter, fill the barrel one third with bird droppings, and then fill it with water to the top. Mix well and leave for 3-5 days, remembering to stir from time to time. Then the liquid fertilizer is diluted: 3-4 parts of water are added to 1 part of the fertilizer and applied to the wells for crops at the rate of 10 l/m2.
Bird droppings are also used in dry form. To do this, it is crushed to a powdery state and added to crops at the rate of 30-50 g/m2.
Bone flour
A product of processing animal bones. Contains a lot of calcium and phosphorus. Bone meal is used as the main fertilizer at the rate of 3-4 kg/m2. In its pure form it decomposes slowly. It can be added to composts. In their composition, it will go through the primary stage of decomposition.
On light soils, bone meal can be used in its pure form.
Peat
There are several types of peat: high-moor, low-lying, transitional.
High-moor peat is not suitable as a fertilizer, as it is a poorly decomposed product.
But it can be composted by pre-treating it with ground carbonic lime. When composting, lime, phosphate rock, mineral fertilizers, manure, and bird droppings are added.
The same can be done with transition peat. Composted peat is used to mulch the soil and added to composts.
Lowland peat is suitable for fertilization without pre-treatment.
Silt deposits are a valuable nitrogen fertilizer. Silt accumulates at the bottom of rivers, ponds and lakes. It contains up to 30% organic matter, up to 2% nitrogen, 0.2-0.5% phosphorus, 0.3-0.5% potassium.
The upper layers of sludge contain more nutrients than the lower layers. In its pure form, sludge is used after preliminary drying and ventilation. It is recommended to apply sludge from fresh water bodies on light soils at a rate of 3-4 kg/m2.
Wood ash
Ash contains many nutrients: phosphorus, potassium, calcium (about 40%), sulfur compounds, magnesium.
The effect of ash on acidic soils is effective. It is applied for autumn digging at the rate of 500-700 g/m2. It is better to scatter the ash on the surface of the soil.
Green fertilizers
Currently, this type of fertilizer is the most popular due to its environmental friendliness.
Herbal infusions are prepared from plants or green mass is grown for subsequent plowing into the ground.
Herbal infusions are applied under the roots of plants and are also used to control pests.
To prepare the infusion, plants such as dandelion, chamomile, nettle, comfrey, and wormwood are placed in a barrel. You can also use dried herbs. The barrel of herbs is filled to the top with water and allowed to ferment. The ratio is 1 kg of fresh herbs or 200 g of dried herbs per 10 liters of water. If the weather is warm, fermentation begins after 3-5 days and continues for 3 weeks. During fermentation, the infusion must be stirred regularly.
➣ Herbal tea is a variant of herbal infusion. To prepare it, take fresh plants, pour boiling water over them and leave in the water until they cool completely. Herbal tea is sprayed on the foliage or watered at the roots of the plants.
During the fermentation process, an unpleasant odor may be released. To get rid of it, you need to add pulverized silica. The infusion is ready when it stops foaming and the liquid becomes clear and dark.
Material prepared by: Nadezhda Zimina, gardener with 24 years of experience, process engineer
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The key to good harvests is high soil fertility. The most effective way to improve its composition is to enrich the structure with useful substances. The most natural and safest of them are organic fertilizers, which help to grow environmentally friendly products.
This type of fertilizer has always existed. At the initial stage of evolution, it significantly influenced the development of life on the planet. Since the emergence of the plant world, organic waste has been an important link in the biocenosis chain, allowing plants to develop and fill new areas. When used rationally, organic fertilizers are an endless resource for agronomy. These are renewable substances of natural origin. They consist of processed waste residues of organisms and plants. Organic matter has a beneficial effect on the soil, transforming its structure at the physical and chemical level, and activates the activity of beneficial living microbes.
The fertile layer covers about 3 billion hectares of the surface of our planet. Over thousands of years, it was formed naturally, from the biological remains of all living things. Today, forced, more rational approaches to enriching arable land have appeared.
Rules for the use of organic fertilizers
The technology of applying organic fertilizers has been developed for centuries. These complex nutrients can provide the necessary vital balance of plants at all stages of growth.
There are several ways to add organic matter:
- Pre-sowing;
- Post-sowing;
- Fergitation;
- Hydroponics.
Fertilizers are applied before planting both in spring and in autumn-winter. For example, in the Urals and Siberia, where cattle are actively raised in villages, the following method of annually enriching the soil in vegetable gardens has taken root:
During the summer, manure accumulates, which is used in the spring to create warm cucumber beds. In winter, such a bed is dismantled and manure is spread around the garden as fertilizer. So it is used twice.
Ash is added before spring planting of vegetables. For example, the fertilizer for potatoes includes ash and manure in equal parts, which are thrown directly into the dug hole.
Fertilizing, which is carried out after the appearance of the third leaf on garden plants, is already considered post-sowing. It happens:
- Root (applied by applying fertilizer to the root zone). For this type of feeding, liquid organic matter is used, for example, bird droppings or slurry.
- Foliar (seed treatment after stratification).
- Fergitation (adding nutrients during irrigation).
- Hydroponics (growing plants in a liquid medium, without soil). But this method has not proven itself to be the best. The taste of the resulting fruits was worse than those grown in the traditional way.
Experiments conducted on growing plants without soil have once again proven that it is an essential element for obtaining vegetables and fruits of standard quality. The quality of agricultural products directly depends on its properties.
To assess the quality of soil on a plot of land use two parameters:
- The first of these is soil composition. Approximately it can be determined in the old fashioned way. We take a shovel and dig. If the soil gives way easily, then it is sandy soil. Now let's try a different approach. Let's take a handful of earth and squeeze it in our palms. If the lump has retained its shape, the soil is clayey. If it leaks through your fingers, it’s sandy.
- The second parameter that determines the quality of the soil is an indicator of its acidity, pH - a factor. For the successful growth of most plants, pH = 6.5-7 is suitable. If the indicator is higher, then it should be lowered. In agriculture, for example, phosphorite flour is used for this. But, if you cultivate an area not of an industrial scale, but a personal plot, then it is quite possible to get by with organic fertilizers. It will be much safer and healthier.
The color of the earth also helps determine its composition. Sandy soil has yellow or gray tint, clay – brown, chernozem - respectively, black. Soil that contains a lot of peat is brown and fibrous to the touch., and the “forest” soil is loose and layered.
If you really want to, rich harvests can be obtained from soil of any quality if you choose the right fertilizers. Let's consider several special cases of their use depending on the composition and acidity of the soil.
Organics for sandy soils
One of the best options for improving soil with a high sand content is high-moor peat.. It has the ability to accumulate moisture, which helps retain it at the roots of plants. Another fertilizer for sandy soil can be made with your own hands without spending a penny. This is compost, which will help structure the soil, making it more viscous, while saturating it with useful substances. The main task solved when fertilizing sandy soils for the garden is to improve their structure. Ideally, they should retain moisture for as long as possible. This soil has few nutrients, therefore, in addition to peat, it is useful to fertilize it manure, bird droppings and compost.
Why fertilize black soil?
Yes, even this type of arable land needs to be fertilized sometimes. The fact is that, like all good things, beneficial substances and microorganisms that help fruits and vegetables grow “by leaps and bounds” tend to run out. Therefore, to maintain a plot of land in a fertile condition, it must be enriched with manure, compost and bird droppings. Once every five years it is necessary to give the field a rest without making any plantings on it.
What organic fertilizers are suitable for alumina?
The best fertilizer for clay soils is manure., which is scattered in autumn or winter throughout the area, and during spring plowing is mixed with the main earth mass. Clay soil is perfect for tomatoes. Popular berries from the nightshade family do well in such soil. But, it is necessary to follow several rules for growing them. This type of soil tends to quickly form a surface crust, which cracks, and, through the resulting capillaries, the water quickly evaporates, leaving a minimum of nutrition for the roots. To prevent this situation, it is necessary to loosen the surface layer immediately after watering, preventing it from drying out.
The use of manured soil in home floriculture
The soil obtained from a personal plot can be used not only for vegetable and garden plantings. Some indoor plants feel great in such a substrate. For example, dwarf roses love alumina. But only fed with well-rotted, dry humus. Cacti can also be planted in clay. The only condition is that the soil must have a weak reaction. There is no need to fertilize it additionally, since succulents initially do not like excessive nutrition. Clay soils have their own processing characteristics. They are heavy, so it is difficult to evenly distribute dry types of fertilizers throughout the entire thickness of the fertile layer in them. To simplify the process in this case, liquid organic fertilizers are used, which can penetrate the soil evenly. They are of natural origin - liquid manure, bird droppings, ash diluted with water. Industrial analogues with similar properties are also now being produced.
Industrial organic fertilizers
"Gumi"
One of the most famous concentrates is. It contains salts of guamic acids, which are a catalyst for rapid cell growth. This is a natural fertilizer of completely natural origin. “Gumi” helps the plant not only quickly gain green and fruit mass, but also increases its protective properties against diseases and pests.
"Baikal"
An equally popular concentrate for modeling the organic balance of soil is. This is “Actimel” for flowers and garden crops, containing lactic acid bacteria. The drug has many beneficial properties. In addition to strengthening the immune system of plants, it is able to convert organic waste into compost. Another useful property of Baikal is that it reduces the concentration of nitrates in fruits by binding salts of heavy metals.
"BioMaster"
Bio Master, as the name suggests, must create the garden of your dreams in the blink of an eye. This universal organic fertilizer includes a complex of various microelements. It is used both in professional field farming and on personal summer cottages. The universal organic fertilizer Miracle Fertility has an exotic base - an extract of relict sapropel. In fact, everything is not so glamorous, and sapropel is ordinary dirt, but it has the unusual property of disinfecting everything around. This “Miracle” has a completely natural composition and is suitable for both indoor and garden plants.
Industrially produced organic fertilizers are very convenient to use. But they still occupy no more than 30% of the natural fertilizer market. Most of it belongs to natural organic matter.
Natural organic matter is an accessible storehouse of nutrients
Using naturally occurring substances that are finishing their life cycle to feed new plants is a natural process. It underlies all life on our planet. Organic matter is indispensable for obtaining high yields of good quality. It has different origins, composition, and spectrum of action.
The main types of organic fertilizers of natural origin:
- Ash;
- Green manure;
- Vermicompost;
- Manure;
- Peat;
- Bird droppings;
- Bone flour;
- Compost;
- Sapropel.
To saturate the soil with useful substances, various types of organic fertilizers are used, depending on the composition and acidity of the soil. On peat and forest soils, wood ash is most often used.
Ash is the most affordable type of organic fertilizer
This fertilizer is used to reduce soil acidity. It contains no chlorine, but contains sulfur, phosphorus, boron, manganese and potassium, the latter element in large quantities.
Ash is used for vegetables during the period of active growth, since potassium allows for productive use of water and helps the root system actively develop. Fruits, bulbs and tubers will be stored longer.
The most useful is that obtained by burning young deciduous plants. It is applied under cucumbers, eggplants, peppers and cabbage, in the ground prepared for planting seedlings. With such soil treatment, young plants are practically not affected by root rot, or, in common parlance, “black leg”. For fruit and berry crops, ash diluted with water can be applied throughout the growing season as a liquid fertilizer. “Ash” water can also be sprayed on tree branches if they are infested with spider mites.
Green manure - organic nitrogen fertilizers
One of the most accessible types of organic fertilizers is plants. They are used when it is necessary to fertilize a large area of land (for example, a potato field) with your own hands. Oats, rye, white clover, field peas, vetch will cope with this task perfectly. These plants are planted for the full growing season, and then they plow the whole thing into the ground. They make the structure of sandy soil more lumpy, enrich it with humus from rotten parts, and nitrogen.
Green manure is selected individually for different plants. For example, if you plant oats in the garden bed where you plan to grow cucumbers in early spring, they will disinfect the soil. When the time comes to plant seedlings, there is no need to completely remove this green manure from the entire garden bed, but it makes sense to only clear out the holes for the seeds. After a couple of weeks, the cereals should be cut off at the root, keeping the nitrogen-containing parts of the plant in the ground to feed the cucumber seedlings.
To increase the nitrogen content, the ancient Romans used a plant such as common lupine. It is enough to bury a whole flower in the tree trunk, and it will be provided with nitrogen in the required quantity for the whole summer.
Vermicompost - advanced organics of the future
In recent years, interest in this long-known but overlooked universal nutrient has increased markedly. What is it? This is the waste of earthworms, which process organic residues into substances rich in nitrogen and potassium. There are significantly fewer weeds on the lands that were introduced, and they have a looser structure. This biological mini-plant will be more in demand on clay, heavy soils, which need to be nourished and their structure improved.
Manure is the best organic fertilizer
can be applied under plants throughout their growth. For example, tomatoes need to be fed twice - the first time before the first flowers appear, the second time after the ovaries appear.
Cabbage is fed after the seedlings take root, and after the heads begin to spin.
Fruit trees will thank you with a high harvest if you water them with manure water (a quarter of a bucket of manure is filled with warm water and left for a day). Fertilizing is carried out in the evening, followed by mandatory loosening.
Features of using peat for fertilizing vegetable gardens
Firstly, it is better not to buy “clean” peat from the lowlands at all. If the choice is limited, then it can be used in the garden, but this is fraught with unnecessary labor costs and a rather long wait. You can make compost from this type of peat by mixing it with potato and tomato tops, sawdust and food scraps. This will help reduce its acidity, while retaining its beneficial properties and nutrients.
Secondly, It is better to initially use high-moor peat. It is ideal as a mulching material in the tree trunks of fruit trees, and as a fertilizer for sandy soil. Application rates are an issue that causes a lot of controversy. The most important thing here is not to overdo it, so in the first year we add about a bucket per 1 square meter, and then we’ll see. If the soil begins to become covered with a white coating, moss appears on it - this means that its acid reaction has intensified, and peat feeding is contraindicated for it in the next five years.
Bird droppings - characteristics of use
This organic compound is considered a valuable supplement. Its composition is several times richer than cow manure.
It is good for them to feed pumpkin, tomato crops, herbs, and root vegetables. But there are some nuances here.
Clean droppings cannot be used as fertilizer.. It is diluted in clean water in a ratio of 1:100 and kept for two days at room temperature. This allows you to activate the beneficial substances and microelements included in its composition.
Bone meal - use in the garden
This fertilizer is well suited for waterlogged gardens. It can reduce soil acidity. rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, and also contains a lot of calcium. All these microelements are beneficial for nightshade and pumpkin crops.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that you should only purchase dry, evaporated bone meal for use in the garden. Raw contains a large percentage of fat, which binds useful substances.
Compost for making a “hot” bed for cucumbers
There is a cheap and proven way to grow cucumbers, melons and watermelons in sandy soil. This is a “hot bed”. To lay it, partially rotted compost is used, which is placed in a rectangular wooden frame. This structure is watered from above with liquid manure and covered with a layer of earth 30-40 cm thick. In place of the holes, small depressions are made where the seeds are planted. The soil in such a bed is constantly well warmed up, due to the heat generated during the decomposition of the green mass of rotting plants.
Sapropel – fertilizer from the lake
Usually this type of humus is sold in regions where there are large lakes. Rotted remains of silt, vegetation, and living organisms are included in its composition. This is an almost complex organic fertilizer containing humus and a large amount of organic substances.
This fertilizer should be used after a little ventilation, because when it interacts with oxygen, a reaction occurs that converts acidic substances into oxide compounds that are more favorable for the soil.
– a truly powerful natural catalyst for growth. After its use, soil fertility increases by 30-50%. It is best used for potatoes, which not only increases yield, but also increases the size of the tubers.
Video: making organic fertilizers with your own hands
In the modern world, the question of the environmental purity of products of plant origin is increasingly being raised. Pesticides, nitrates and other compounds harmful to the human body have become the norm, and every year their content in vegetables, fruits and cereals only increases. This happens due to the excessive use of mineral fertilizers, as well as means of protection against pests that are of an artificial nature.
There is an alternative to this dominance of chemicals. These are organic fertilizers that have been used by humans throughout the history of agriculture. They ensure the restoration of soil balance naturally and contain the entire range of substances necessary for the full growth and development of plants. But, most importantly, they do not harm the health of the consumer of plant products. This is the most important argument that tips the scales in favor of choosing organic fertilizers.