From a practical standpoint, 50,000 lbs of organic matter is a _lot_ of
material. That is 50 loads on a half ton pick-up truck, or about a load
a week per acre (208' x 208'). That would require the application of
1250 40 pound bales of straw per acre, for example. Since I only bring
chemical free organic matter onto my ecofarm, I have not found sources
for that much mass, and I really don't want to. Of my 63 acres, 20 are
tillable (the rest is hardwood forest), so I would need to bring in one
million pounds of matter to raise SOM by 1%. The most practical way to
increase SOM of any significance in temperate climates is by grazing
animals on grass. That is how and why the Midwestern tall grass prairie
(Eastern corn belt) and the central plains attained SOM levels of 8-10
percent. Louis Bromfield claimed he was generating 1" of topsoil per
year on Malabar Farm in Ohio, USA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEBoAEb7Opw
Steve
Indiana USA
On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 11:12 PM, Toby Hemenway
<toby@patternliteracy.com>wrote:
Although 50,000 lbs sounds like a lot, it's only about 20 cubic yards per_______________________________________________
acre, 40 at most. So it's not that hard to boost SOM using compost (even
though I'm a big fan of mulches).
Toby
http://patternliteracy.com
On Dec 26, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Glenn Gall wrote:
On 9/18/2011 2:03 AM, m_astera wrote:
How much compost or manure would one need to add to raise the Soil_______________________________________________
Organic Matter SOM content of an acre of soil 6" deep by 1%?
SOM percentage is calculated by weight, not volume. The convention
used is that 1 acre of soil 6-7" deep weighs 2,000,000 (two million)
pounds. Or a hectare of soil 15cm deep weighs 2,000,000 kg. One
percent of that is 20,000 lbs/acre or 20,000 kg/ha
Compost and manure can be assumed to be around 60% moisture and 40%
dry organic matter. So
20,000 / 0.40 = 50,000
To add 1% organic matter to the top 6" or 15cm of soil would require
about 50,000 lbs/acre or 50,000 kg/ha of organic matter at 60%
moisture content.
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