The Main Nuances Of Using Sheep Manure

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

To fertilize various plants, not only well-known cow manure is actively used, but also sheep manure. Sheep wastes are good because they contain a high enough percentage of nitrogen, which allows them to decompose perfectly even in very heavy soils. However, some care must be taken when working with sheep manure - fresh manure can not only benefit the plants, but also burn their roots. How to use such fertilizer correctly?

Application features

In its pure form, sheep excrement is used extremely rarely - in order to get the most out of it, it is usually combined with other types of organic fertilizers. With this approach, they turn into an incredibly effective tool for both soil enrichment after winter and for top dressing!

To significantly improve the quality of sheep manure, it is mixed with organic residues from a number of vegetable crops, such as bell peppers, as well as corn and melons or nightshade crops. But it is not recommended to take additives of animal origin (like wool, bones, fat, etc.) - without them, manure will be re-cooked much faster, and the final product can be obtained after a couple of months!

In no case should you spread sheep manure in small heaps or scatter it over the ground - in this case, it will lose the lion's share of the most useful elements, and the fertilizer efficiency will decrease significantly. That is why sheep manure scattered over the beds must be immediately covered with at least a small soil layer. This is especially important when applying fertilizers for the winter - if you ignore this simple rule, then by spring all the compost introduced will lose its valuable properties.

Sheep manure is an excellent and, most importantly, environmentally friendly fertilizer available to everyone without exception! It boasts more efficiency than mullein, as well as the ability to improve both the structure of the soil and its physical parameters. And it also contains all the elements necessary for the nutrition of growing crops. And no bad smell! This raw material is consumed very economically, since it is usually applied in small doses, and it is a very good biofuel for greenhouses.

How to deposit correctly?

As a fertilizer, such manure is best applied during spring or autumn digging of the soil. If you wanted to pamper the plants with good fertilizer even in the summer, then first, small piles of manure are laid out in the beds, and then immediately they are dug up along with the soil. However, it is not necessary to embed sheep manure too deeply - the deeper it is, the worse it will affect the soil. And in order to accelerate the decomposition of already introduced manure, approximately a week after its introduction, the soil is re-dug up.

Throughout the year, the cultivated crops take the most potassium from the enriched soil, while the consumption of nitrogen with phosphorus is much slower. That is why, when adding sheep manure, it will not hurt to apply a small amount of other fertilizers containing potassium. But you shouldn't oversaturate the soil either! Ideally, mineral dressings alternate with organic ones. Some, for example, can be brought in with the onset of spring, and others in the fall, and vice versa in the next season.

Those who have already come across sheep dung are well aware that it is characterized by a fairly dense structure. If it is necessary to soften it, the prepared raw materials are systematically moistened and mixed well - this will also saturate the fertilizer with oxygen.

Overripe manure is richer in phosphorus, as well as nitrogen and potassium, than fresh manure. At the same time, humus, which was prepared in greenhouses, can boast of the best quality - in humus prepared outside the greenhouses there are usually a lot of weed seeds and larvae of harmful insects, and these are far from the best characteristics.

Sheep humus is also widely used for mulching - for this it is combined with straw. Being covered with such mulch, the soil will retain moisture much longer, and during heavy rains or watering, it will give the plants a huge amount of valuable nutrient compounds.

As for working with pure sheep manure, here you need to be very careful - it is best to apply it in the spring, about fifteen to twenty days before the start of sowing work. It will not hurt to be careful when using such raw materials for heating greenhouses - under the influence of high temperatures, sheep manure begins to emit harmful gases.