Page 27 - MNLGA Free State Winter 2025

went to my grandfather's barn yard do it in the best manner we know.
and hauled home cow manure from Using organics Preparation is always the key to
the very bottom of the pile for use in success in any endeavor. The front-
the garden. It was black and smelled for agricultural loaded costs of using compost may
good. production is not new. appear impractical but if we achieve

Without consciously recalling those Highly sustainable better growth rates and sustain
events of my youth, we started our soils over time, it may be less
applying compost to our fields here systems, such as the expensive.
at Waverly Farm in 2005. This came "Farmers of Forty There are numerous good reasons
about because I was convinced we to spend the money up front. There
were increasing winter damage by Centuries" in China, is only enough space here to discuss
using synthetic fertilizer. I sought an kept fields productive three reasons briefly, but in fact they
alternative system of nutrition and are the three to discuss:
general soil health. Knowing that since as early as 1. Soil replenishment. When we
the salts of synthetic fertilizer can 2000 BCE using these sell our soil with a plant, we sell
degrade soil microbe populations, about 250 tons per acre. We
which in turn affects plant health, methods.
(continued on next page)
I sought to reduce or eliminate the
use of fertilizer. At the same time,
we began using an Imants spading
machine to prepare soil for planting
and to incorporate compost. In
combination we increased plant
productivity; same plant increased
productivity of 20% to 40% in the
absence of fertilizer and reduced
pruning.

In the beginning the math looked
like this. We used an application rate
of approximately 100 tons per acre
from Linden Farms Humus. It was a
by-product of LeafGro production
from Maryland Environmental. It cost
$1,475.00 per acre for the material to
be delivered to our yard. Assuming
the average planting rotation is six
years, the average annual cost for
compost applied one time was $245
per acre ($1,475.00 divided by 6).
Longer rotations cost less per acre,
and shorter rotations may allow for
less compost.

We only get one opportunity to plant
our liners, and it makes sense to
Applying compost
Membership Matters • WINTER 2025 27