February 2023 Newsletter

Getting Ready for Spring

What To Do With Your Compost When Spring Arrives

As we emerge from winter, our days are getting longer, air and soil temperatures are slowly increasing, and plants are showing signs of new growth. In a few short weeks, spring will have arrived and the growing season will be in full swing. Now is the perfect time to plan for the application of the compost that you have been producing and setting aside since last fall.

The following discussion on Pasture Grazing Management is a synopsis from a fact sheet prepared by the Washington State University Clark County Extension Service. Statements taken directly from the fact sheet are presented in this font while additions to this information (contributed by O2Compost) have been italicized.

Grazing season is rapidly approaching - are your pastures ready? Good pastures provide forage for your animals, absorb rainfall, filter runoff, and reduce erosion, all of which protect streams. Bare spots created by overgrazing encourage weed growth, increased erosion, runoff, and dust and may cause poor animal health.

There are five steps that you can follow to improve and better manage your pastures.

Read the full article on our Blog.

O2Compost Q&A

Compost Pile Temperatures

"What am I looking for when I take my compost pile temperatures?"

ANSWER:

1. Our primary goal is for your compost to reach and exceed 131°F for at least three days. This is referred to as a "Process to Further Reduce Pathogens" or PFRP.
   
   
2. The rate at which the pile temperatures change during the first week to 10 days of active composting is equally important as achieving the PFRP. High energy feedstocks (e.g. chicken manure) will rise very quickly whereas low energy feedstocks (e.g. alpaca manure) will rise more slowly.
   
   
3. When building a pile with daily additions of manure and stall bedding, the pile will already begin to build heat in its core before turning on the airflow. With aeration, the pile temperature is expected to increase 20 to 30 degrees in 12 to 24 hours. If it doesn't, something is wrong and we need to do some troubleshooting.
   
   
4. Read the following and then immediately forget that I said it:  From a biological standpoint, the optimum pile temperature is between 100º and 120ºF. Within this temperature range, we have the greatest number and diversity of bacteria doing the composting work for us and the rate of composting is optimized.

There's more ... read the rest on our Blog.

New Benchmark System

Owner:  John C.
Location:  Sewickley, PA
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