Woodchip for farmland

[D.M.Taylor Firewood Supp]

Been offered 1600 cube of woodchip.question is would my farmland benefit from it if I mixed it with cow manure?? Because there would be too much for me to use as mulch

[Marko]

Depends what you mean by benefit. It will drain your existing nitrogen levels in order to decompose but will improve a poor be a good soil structure if worked in.

[ArthurBottlesworth]

Could you mix it with chicken/pig sh*t to stop excess nitrogen ?

[dustydave]

I wouldn't think it would do you any good.

 

If you farmed on limestone and wanted to grow rhododendrons, then lining the hole that they are planted in with wood chip would lower the PH. That is about as useful as it gets... I'm guessing that you are on a gley type soil and adding too much wood chip would mess up the current soil ecosystem and create an increase in anaerobic environment, the soil microcrobes would utilise the only available o2 in the soil by breaking down any NO3 into NO2 to gain the oxygen the remain NO2 (ammonia) would disappear as gas, then the breakdown of the wood chip would be very slow and more bacterial than mycorrizehal, plus the acidification of the soil would mobilise some of the useful minerals and you would loose some to lower soil horizons. If you processed the woodchip in an oxygen rich environment, ie a heap that you turn regularly then eventually you'd get some useful microbes and organisms and then useful compost, or you could biochar it - ie turn it into charcoal, that might increase the cation exchange capacity of the soil and therefore enable greater availability of nutrients to plant roots, or not.

Edited March 25, 2014 by dustydave

[headgroundsman]

http://www.calu.bangor.ac.uk/Technical%20leaflets/050104woodchipbeddingcompostrev3.pdf

Not sure if this will work as a link but if not try google it. You could use it as bedding in the cattle sheds, then compost it and use it again. Once composted it would not rob the ground of nitrogen and would even give some back

[dazlog]

Daz, we spread woodchip on oat stubble every year as along as it`s been stood for a year or so, hasn`t done any harm, can`t say you can see much difference in yield but it does get rid of the chip.

[Stubby]

We tip our chip at the farm . It gets mixed with stable mucking out and cow shite from the next farm . Sometimes there is a lot of conifer in it . This is acidic but the chalky south downs I believe is alkaline . It festers away steaming and fermenting then its put in the spreader and on it goes . The farmer thinks its great ......

[benedmonds]

Just make sure there are no logs in it when spreading. We did allot of damage to a muck spreader years back when a stray log went in..

[bythamboy]

we always used to put a 6" layer of oldish chip in bottom of cattle sheds , soaks up the wet and allows you to push muck fork tines under the mated straw layer , heap it in spring and it blends in , best on really heavy soils to open it or add body to sandy soils .

[Stubby]

Just make sure there are no logs in it when spreading. We did allot of damage to a muck spreader years back when a stray log went in..

 

Yea that's a strict rule !