Composting Horse Manure in a Bioreactor - One Year Later

Horse manure has been composting for one year in a Johnson-Su-inspired bioreactor. Today I open the reactor and see how the compost looks. Johnson-Su Bioreactor videos: • Johnson-Su Bioreactor ...
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[@caseG80]

Be interesting to check it out under a scope to really see what’s going on? Great looking wonder how many worms found the pile from underneath

[@brianseybert2189]

Would be interesting to put a sample under a microscope and see what types of soil organisms are present.

[@peter913]

I have a number of compost bins and when I want to clean one out and don't necessarily need it in the garden at that time I place the compost in large pots or a trash can with no bottom on top of garden beds. That way all the worms can move freely between the bed and trash can or pots. I have one in a winter squash bed at the moment. I occasionally remove the lid from the trash can or pot and water. The nutrients from the trash can will slowly leech into the bed for the benefit of the plants in the bed. I also have a large compost bay which I only place horse manure from stables in, though it has saw dust mixed through. After a number of months the horse manure has broken down with masses of worms. Overall this cost me nothing aside from a time and effort as I obtain the horse manure for free. I did turn this pile once in a while. I'm almost ready to clean out this bay and start a new batch of horse manure compost which I slowly pile up as I pick up bags of horse manure.

[@jeshurunfarm]

Respect from Africa 🇿🇦

[@leslienichols5268]

Thanks Diego. Always interesting, especially for us compost nerds.

[@JohnMarsing]

You spent all this time waiting for it to develop does it make sense to have it tested to see what kind of biology is in there and also how much more fungal dominant it is. I think it would be an interesting to see those results

[@davidsawyer7880]

Extra coffee this morning. Where I live the state university offers two(2) soil tests. The least expensive gets one the NPK and PH. The more comprehensive test I believe twenty (20) mineral counts. None of the tests offer soil life results. Certainly some entity offers that info for a rather princely sum. Is it worth it?

[@xaviercruz4763]

@@davidsawyer7880 living Web farms has a video that says “life through the microscope “ or along the línes where you get a comprehensive class

[@davidsawyer7880]

@@xaviercruz4763 Thanks.

[@tonysu8860]

Because the pile was finished off with worms, it's easy to suggest that there is plenty of and diverse bacteria in the worm castings, but not a lot of fungus because the worms would consume that. Yeah, I know there is some big suggestions out there nowadays about a mycelial network and soil fungus but surprisingly no one seems to have studied how essential or beneficial that is if a worm population is present. I'm personally speculating that worms can perform the same function of transporting and distributing endophytes and other bacteria that plants find so beneficial... but I'm purely speculating without an ounce of factual basis.

[@Junzar56]

Great. Good to know about the roots! This makes so much sense!

[@vennic]

I've had a garden box and compost pile completely desiccated by tree root infiltration when left to sit too long, so the boxes now have plastic or root barriers of sorts. My kids are trained to collect and drop worms in the compost or garden boxes after a rain storm.

[@frankscales7295]

Another outstanding Vid from Diego. Theres much to learn from his posts.

[@kurtlanford1448]

Great job sir. Thanks for sharing your knowledge !

[@agostinopeta2295]

Thank you for your honesty 👍

[@EarlybirdFarmSC]

Very interesting results.

[@rufia75]

Great stuff, Diego.

[@WestTexasGardenExperiment]

Thank you for sharing the results. I semi-copied a method I saw Geoff Lawton do where he puts manure in a bath tub along with worms and food scraps and kept it moist, and the worms completely convert the materials into castings in a few short months. I've heard worms convert 1/2 their body weight of food into castings per day, so if you started out with a pound of worms, they would at the minimum eat 1/2 lb per day. That amount would speed up as they reproduce. I've filled an old tub (outside my home) with donkey manure and covered the top with leaves, and have gradually added a few worms to it over the past year. Now when I dig into the tub, the materials look like pure castings like in your video, and every shovel full is loaded with worms. Seems like similar results to this bioreactor, but maybe with less hassle. I can't say that a tub sitting outside is very attractive though.

[@texasecofarms]

Looks like primo stuff man! Interesting how the roots sought out your compost. I had the same thing happen to a tarped pile of rock minerals

[@TheHivefl]

That spot in the garden is gonna fire 🔥. I do this next to my banana mats and they love it!

[@colbykinney5633]

Do you think the benefit root exudates give could out weight the loss of a few nutrients? Great show buddy!

[@DiegoFooter]

Honestly not sure. I would rather just add the root exudate in field.

[@radicelle]

To answer that question you must find the plant in question and check its state of growth. Check also the composition of the compost pile to see if minerals are in soluble state. Plants will probably exhudate in this compost rich in bacteries and funghus to get its investment back during fructification. Though if the plant can help itself to get the nutrions then it will not need to exudate. Moreover, the root stucture will probably be different, with or without mycorrhizal fungi. At first sigh it looks like Diego's roots are just pumping nutrions from the pile, but can't really tell from the video. Good luck with that :)

[@clivesconundrumgarden]

@@radicelle I was going to ask the question. Very new to gardening. Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough answer !! Cheers

[@chirodocheilman]

Cool video. Always a little nervous about using horse manure because #1 - the amount of dewormer given to the horses - concerned about damaging the composting worms and #2 - the residual glyphosphate (roundup) in the hay fed to the horses remaining past the digestion and composting cycles and blocking germination of seeds planted in soils ammended with compost. Your finished product looks amazing.

[@gchrom]

Seeing live roots in there I had this thought: have you or anyone you know tried using an old(12months old) Johnson-Su reactor pile to grow a quick growing(say 3-4 months), mycorrhizally inoculated crop to senescence? The mature, dying plants would signal to their mycorrhizal fungi partners that it's time to reproduce and BAM! you have a huge pile of mycorrhizally inoculated high quality compost. I'll probably try this myself with my next finished pile, but I don't have the equipment or know-how to check if it actually did what I think

[@marynunn1708]

Great video as always. Thanks! Were you at all concerned with persistent herbicides (eg picloram, clopyralid etc) passing through the horse, through the bioreactor and into your garden? (Tree roots a lot more tolerant than garden veggies). Or did you start with known herbicide free horse manure? You’re the best! Thanks.

[@doncook3584]

Really enjoyed. An earlier vid you made has me sold on filling trash cans and let it set. Im done turning and mixing. Mine have already shrunk by 1/3rd just since September. I wet them when watering yard. That’s all. I swear I can hear all the microbes and fungi munching on the leaf/grass mix like it’s a sleeve of Pringles (one of my vices)

[@phillipbampton911]

If you have two bins settled halfway do you pour them together to make one full bin or is that not recommended?

[@doncook3584]

@@phillipbampton911 good question. I understood the process was to fill them and walk away so I’m going to not touch until April at which time I will assess and either use on garden; let decompose further or combine them to decompose further. I have these cans next to my main pile that gets periodic turns, harvest or added new material.

[@phillipbampton911]

@@doncook3584 Thank you for this.

[@matthewspatch9529]

I compost wood cat litter pellets (feces removed) in large composting cones and in bays. I find that horse manure does really speed things up but the 1 cubic metre cones do often taken 9 month to a year to finish. Really interesting project.

[@manjichromagnon5480]

The poo is the best part. Honestly

[@rickthelian2215]

Location of the bio reactor if you want a shady area your going to have roots from surrounding trees. I notice if you put a bioreactor or compost heap near a fruit tree it benefits from the fluid run off of the compost heap or bio reactor in this case.

[@MatthewSweetUX]

Hi Diego, a year ago my JS was progressing very nicely. Then a few weeks later I did an inspection and noticed it had completely dried out. A Fikas tree had sent roots right up into the pile and sucked it completely dry of moisture in a relatively short period of time. Needless to say, all future JS will have weed mat put down on the ground first.

[@DiegoFooter]

Weed mat is a good idea. Might need to double it up for aggressive roots. Nice suggestion.

[@zoddsonofthor5576]

Or if you have a pallet you can get it of the ground which is another benefit of using the pallet

[@MatthewSweetUX]

@@zoddsonofthor5576 hey man, I had it on a pallet, but as the worms broke it down, material fell down through the holes and piled up on the ground, causing an avenue for the roots to penetrate.

[@zoddsonofthor5576]

@@MatthewSweetUX yeah that can happen I place chicken wire over the bottom and lay landscapers fabric over that before loading it with compost. No problems since but I do have those things on hand and in quantity so I get why ppl avoid them.

[@jean-pierreposman7282]

Hou have Nice compostvideos Diego , i be thankfull for that . Do you have video's how much you sur in a normale inground bed ? I be a starting gardener sins a yaer and have in that time a lot of compost made . Nut i dont now how much i have to use this end of the winter for next season in spring ....

[@MoMedic92]

Hey man, I miss your videos 😢

[@waynetadlock9719]

I too would like to see a Macro thru Miro nutrient breakdown, including trace minerals. A favorable biologicals assessment could be the icing on the cake.

[@agostinopeta2295]

We are waiting for the endresults of the experiment video with the different reactortypes🤩😈🤣 greetings from colombia

[@janegregware3595]

Could you set your compost pile on a layer of bio char instead of bare ground?

[@davidsawyer7880]

Hey Diego thanks for the update. As discussed before my setup is similar but less elaborate. Lazy mans/womans way. Kick it over no unwrapping and kick it around letting the goodness fall where it may. Direct sow. No till maybe an easy rake to spread it out. Your efforts are duely appreciated.

[@theurzamachine]

Diego, do you ever till into a fallow bed? A lot of gardeners say to not till leaves or carbon rich materials into the soil but when I do that, they disappear within a month or by May of the next year (if I till stuff in in October). I've had pieces of lumber that I found under the soil but I do not see bits larger than a standard woodchip. Most of those have decomposed within about 1 year. All I see are larger pieces that are rotting from one end and smaller pieces when they break off as I pull the large piece out.

[@DiegoFooter]

I usually don’t but doing a trial on that coming up. Mixing it deeper into the soil to try to fix soil issues deeper down quickly.

[@ronniemcmaster8657]

You should check out some of Elaine Ingham's work. The microbiology will move into the "dirt", bring it to life, and start feeding plants.

[@titosrevenger]

@@ronniemcmaster8657 if you look at Diego's channel you might notice that he regularly posts videos from a Elaine Ingham.

[@ronniemcmaster8657]

@@titosrevenger He does have a few. There are more videos out there. Philip mentioned tilling. Tilling destroys fungi.

[@bambigrage8464]

I watched your other video on toxic manure and compost. You mentioned testing by growing in it. My question is that if I have been using composted manure and my garden is doing great, should I not be concerned? I am not confident. Is there a soil test we can send away for to see if there are pesticides or herbicides in the finished compost?

[@DiegoFooter]

You would have to send it in to get it tested to confirm. If your plants look healthy and are growing healthy then you are probably good.

[@philunderwood9611]

I live in an area where chicken liter is easily accessible. Any thoughts on how this would work?

[@geraldgauthier8717]

I do have a question about temperature of the Bio-pile and worms. My thought is that optimum cooking temperature is 140 degrees. Worms don't live long in heat. What should I be thinking regarding this?

[@phillipbampton911]

Not a gardener's whatnot so this is question not criticism. You have put wood chips and manure through these reactors separately. Is this really compost? I know that I can be too pedantic and I don't care if you just misspoke, just asking. Also have you put a mixture of the two through? Does that work more quickly? Thanks

[@davidsilveira198]

Does the Johnson Su Bioreactor method get rid of weeds?

[@neverwinterfarms]

What is the brand name of the dual compost tumbler.

[@FOR8YESHUA]

Diego Footer + When is the Humanure video?

[@DiegoFooter]

Never. Not my thing.

[@clivesconundrumgarden]

Great video but I have to say the comments and replies on you are as much benefit as the video imo. You have some wicked smart people watching and commenting ;) Cheers!

[@janehilbery6596]

What about herbicides that are used on hay fields, and ends up in horse manure

[@Horse237]

How do you separate out the worms without harming them?

[@sageninja7260]

Do you use compost tea?

[@braddraves7288]

Does the horse manure not get too hot for worms

[@QuiChiYang2]

Did you collect the methane gas & use it?

[@DiegoFooter]

No. I am not that good yet. :)

[@mmhausser6592]

Did you take temperatures at all during the 12 months ? Working with manure shouldn't you make sure you reach a certain temp to kill any bad bacteria and weed seeds?

[@DiegoFooter]

It only heated up in the beginning. Yes higher temperatures would solve those problems, so you would probably need to turn the pile outside of the reactor first and then add it to the reactor if those issues were a concern.

[@tonysu8860]

If you believe what recent biodiversity and plant diversity theory has said, You shouldn't be concerned about roots in your compost, it's actually supposed to be more beneficial than a problem. The idea is that all "decent" soil has adequate amounts of P and K and especially if amended a pretty adequate amount of N. What is really lacking in good soil are the multiple thousands of microbes and soil fauna (eg plankton) that is so abundant everywhere on earth but still needs to be super cultivated in really good soil, these are what enables the soil elements NPK to be absorbed through roots into plants, and is best created by plants. A few foreign and invasive roots might provide that kind of diversity without stealing a significant amount of NPK.

[@Hojjiifp]

All nutrients will go down to the ground and tree roots will get into the compost pile...

[@mylesfalconer9183]

where is Bro-dude (aka Burt)? ah maybe he's moved on... for the best...

[@DiegoFooter]

Sleeping in my van. 🚐

[@te3595]

ZihjiiiL

[@wayneparker5101]

FIRST 😊