compost

Uli Urban johannes-ulrich-urban@T-Online.de
Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:18:00 PDT
Dear Dennis and Dear All,


Very interesting what you write about horse manure and orchids. I feel
slightly off topic.... but still. I have never dared to use pure horse
manure on any plant and for sure never fresh. The mentioned wood/grass
cutting and horse manure compost is composted for at least one year
before I use it. (German winter slows down rotting) When starting with
fresh material the whole heap becomes steaming hot. The ripe compost is
always full of fungi mycelia but they seem to be of the beneficial
sort.... I always try to have a stock of this wonderful material but by
keeping it it decomposes further and becomes almost peat like but never
as wet or dense as peat. I had a sad failure using this compost with a
large Oncidium (not rare, it was one of the commercial yellow hybrids
but several years old)so I became careful. I "developed" this mix for
epiphytic cacti like Epiphyllums and Selenicereus and Schlumbergera and
they bave never performed better since. My two seedlings of Pamianthe
peruviana are also grown in this mix and I add a good portion of it to
my Amorphophallus and Lilium pots. Also Gesneriads like it...... I use
rain water exclusively for watering. So far I have never ever had the
problem of soil born disease or fungal infection using compost of high
organic content.
Having read your lines I will become more daring in using horse manure
components in other plants and orchids, too.

Hope you do not mind the slightly off-topic way of this
contribution.................     Uli


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