wood chip compost

[Jaroslavgreen]

Hi, New here, so please bear with me. I'm having trouble figuring out what is right and wrong for making compost.

 

I have a ranch with not the best soil. It was an old cotton farm and that may have depleated the soil. In reclaiming the pasture I cut out tens of thousands of mesquite and cedar trees. After burning most of them, I finally bought a 6" chipper for my tractor. It makes fabulous mounds of fairly small chips which I hope will make some good compost someday to apply to my soil.

 

The question is, when I chip lots of freshly cut down cedar, youpon, mesquite, elm, oak, etc., can a portion of that be considered "greens"? I'm having trouble getting enough cow manure to add to the piles and other greens are in short supply in the winter. When the summer comes, manure is in short supply because the dung beetles cart it off so fast. I added 2 yards of cow manure to 5 yards of green chips. Is that enough to make good compost? For a month, the chips by themselves didn't heat up much, so they aren't really greens, I'm guessing. They did start to turn a nice brown color.

 

Does anyone have experience mulching fresh wood?

[Peter]

Welcome to the forum.

 

To make compost, you need woody material containing lignin, water, oxygen and nitrogen for the decay bacteria.

 

Wood chip with no leaf will decay slowly because although it is high in lignin, it has little water and nitrogen.

 

You could add a high nitrogen fertiliser to the mix, and water, and turn the heap to aerate it.

 

Chip with a higher leaf content will compost better on its own, but will still need turning regularly to aerate and will probably need added water.

 

Rather than adding artifical fertiliser, anything with a high water and nitrogen content such as grass cuttings are ideal.

 

With the right mix and plenty of turning, it should be possible to produce reasonable compost in around six weeks.

 

With a worse mix, it will still make compost but it will take much longer, up to 3 years, but it will get there eventually.

 

If you only do one thing to the compost, then turn it to keep the temperature down and aerate it, as when it gets too hot the bacteria will die, and without oxygen they will die.

 

Hope that helps