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Kakabeka Falls,On. Canada.

I'm just wondering if how much of an an effect there is on the soil if I use horse manure that has pine wood shavings?,and what I have to use to counter act the acid level. My wife and I began using wood shavings instead of straw this year because it is so much cleaner,and easier to clean up.

10/10/2007 9:55:04 PM

Picton,ON ([email protected])

Shavings are much harder to breakdown than straw and will tie up Nitrogen while decomposing. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however it may slow down the speed that your pile composts. If you are applying fresh horse manure to your patch with lots of wood shavings, you may need to add aditional N. If the material is completely composted prior to adding to the patch, it won't make any differance.

If your soil PH is low already, you will need to add Lime to bring this up. if you soils are like mine and Alkiline (Base PH 8), you want all the acid you can get.

10/10/2007 11:09:33 PM

Puyallup, WA

I would think that shavings would take several years to break down into usable soil components. I know that fine sawdust in the horse manure that I use can still be detected after two years.

10/10/2007 11:22:27 PM

Somers, CT

Sometimes you do not have a choice. I put some in last year and it is pretty broken down now. Kept out the weeds the first year. Do it in the fall to give it the winter. Have it tested to make sure nothing is out of wack.

10/11/2007 7:35:41 AM

Monrovia, CA

I have one horse on pine shavings and one on straw. The pine is alot cleaner (and less flies) but I still keep the one on straw for my compost's sake. I use the fork and sift out all the pine shavings from the other one before the manure goes into the compost. I remember trying to compost shavings with manure and digging in the pile one year later to still find the shavings in the pile. One thing new this year...build your compost bin out of bales of straw! Then when it comes time to use it you dig the straw in too! It also allows you to locate your manure piles wherever you want and not have to build stationary structures.

10/11/2007 9:48:50 AM