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On Jan 31, 2005, at 7:05 PM, breezyhill wrote:

>  Someone I know is burning an accumulation of horse manure rather than composting it. He has been told that this produces a very rich fertilizer. I am aghast. Surely all of the lovely N and soil conditioning properties are lost. Would there be anything left except potash?

Well, even if it's not as rich as the manure was, I suppose burning has some advantages.  It kills bugs and weed seeds, for instance.  My father's garden "caught" cutworms from a load of inadequately composted horse manure, and he never was able to get rid of them after that.  He was told that horse manure is often inadequately composted, as it's not as rich as cow manure, and doesn't "cook" as hot.  That load of manure was probably the single worst thing he ever did to his garden.

Ginda