[USCC] Iron Contect in Compost

Tue Sep 29 12:00:49 CDT 2009

 Brian,

A simple question doesn't always elicit a simple answer ("depends on soil pH", "depends on crop", etc.) and sometimes it elicits additional questions ("what type of iron -elemental?", "chelated?", "iron in compounds?") but in this case, your lucky. 

At the Baltimore City 9biosloids) Composting Facility we had between 4-8% iron on a continual basis. (That's a lot). Variation was mostly from the amount of flocculent (ferric sulfate, the floc. used in Baltimore City) needed. With ComPro at Site II, it was a pretty steady 4% - still a goodly amount. I positioned both products for primarily turf application based on the amount of iron. It provided the customer with  excellent green-up and without pushing an excessive amount of nitrogen growth. Milorganite is 6% iron because of the flocculent and because additional ferric sulfate is added as for odor mitigation. Other commercial products such as Ironite are as much as 12% iron. 

In general, manure composts have higher Iron content than non-manure composts. Iron becomes much more phyto-available as the soil pH is reduced.

The downside of elevated iron (as it applies to biosolids compost) is that according to the 503 regs., compost with greater than 4% iron cannot be used for field application where cattle are to be grazed: There is concern for cattle with ingesting the compost and having other nutrient deficiencies can cause bovine ironosis.

I hope this practical answer helps.

David Hill
CycleLogic Environmental Consulting/Business Development
www.mycyclelogic.com

-----Original Message-----

From: BfleuryWeCare at aol.com

To: compost at mailman.cloudnet.com

Sent: Mon, Sep 28, 2009 4:34 pm

Subject: [USCC] Iron Contect in Compost

Does anyone have information on acceptable ranges of iron in compost?   I 

understand that Iron is good, but....How much is too much?

Thank you in  advance for your responses.

Brian C. Fleury

Senior Project  Manager

WeCare Organics, LLC

PO Box  785

Hillburn, NY 10931

(O) 845 / 753 / 2314

(F) 845 / 753 / 2349

(C)  315 / 374 / 5098

bfleurywecare at aol.com

_www.wecareorganics.com_ (http://www.wecareorganics.com/) 

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