[USCC] Reducing B, pH, Salts in finished compost

[William (Bill) Carter]

Dear Reddy Ganta,
Based on working with several dairy manure compost facilities, a few
suggestions:
1. Have all feedstocks including lagoon water analyzed for the
constituents you are concerned with, and consider eliminating the
sources contributing most of those constituents. 
2. Lagoon water is likely to carry a very high percentage of the
soluble salts, esp. on a dry weight basis.
3. High pH may be related to ammonia and/or high-pH corral soil. If
there is excess ammonia not consumed due to inadequate available carbon
in the mixture, even though the overall %OM looks good, the pH is likely
to rise throughout the composting process and afterward. Wood shavings
can be slow to release available carbon.
4. Inadequate aeration can contribute to the pH problem, especially
with a high bulk density mixture.
        - Bill Carter
 
 
 
 
Bill Carter
Water Quality Monitoring & Assessment    MC 165
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
P.O. Box 13087
Austin, TX  78711-3087
Phone:  512-239-6771
Fax:  512-239-4410
wcarter at tceq.state.tx.us

>>> ganta at glorietageo.com 8/1/2006 12:18 PM >>>

Dear fellow composters,
We would like to reduce Soluble salts, pH and Boron concentrations in a
dairy compost (windrow composting). The raw materials used are separator
manure, corral manure, wood shavings and horse apples. Dairy lagoon
water is used to start the process and then on fresh water to maintain
the moisture content.
Typical Analysis of finished compost:
pH - 8.9 - 9.6 
Soluble salts (EC 5) - 13-21 ds/m
OM - 42-62 %
Moisture - 40-50%
Total Boron 84-99 ppm 
Total N - 1.2% dryWt
Questions:
Any cost effective commercial methods of reducing Boron, pH and Salts
in dairy compost ?
Is this analysis typical for a dairy compost?
Any experiences on diluting the compost with clean dirt (sandy
loams/silt loams) ?

Thank you

Reddy Ganta
M.S. Agriculture., M.S. Bioinformatics
Agricultural Informatics Scientist
GLORIETA GEOSCIENCE, INC.
1723 2nd street
Santa Fe, NM-87502
voice: (505) 983 5446 Ext. 107
Fax: (505) 983 6482
URL: www.glorietageo.com