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