From manure to magic

Farmers and gardeners are embracing The Real Thing Farm Compost – a made-in-Alberta solution that gives back to the land by the shovel full.

Alberta produces some of the best beef cattle in the world. There’s no argument there, but the cattle industry also produces an abundance of manure. Each day, the average beef cow drops about 25 lbs. of dry matter (about 70% water). With approximately 5.5 million head of cattle in the province, that adds up pretty quickly. So what happens to all that?

Some feedlot operators distribute the waste product to farmers who spread it on their fields to add nutrients to the soil. While there are benefits to adding manure to fields, there are also drawbacks. It contains pathogens like E. coli and salmonella along with pesky weed seeds that reproduce in other crops.

Process eliminates pathogens, weed seeds

Fortunately, there’s a made-in-Alberta solution produced for Agricore by EcoAg Initiatives, it’s called The Real Thing Farm Compost and it’s making a name for itself across Western Canada. Bob Ermter, Agricore’s compost marketing manager, explains how the compost is made from manure.

“The manure is composted by putting it into 180-metre long windrows and then turning it over with a giant SCARAB machine to add oxygen to the pile. We carefully monitor the amount of moisture and temperature in the piles to allow aerobic microorganisms to be generated, which are the ones that turn the cellulose material into humus.”

By maintaining a consistent temperature throughout the entire windrow of 55°C for 15 days, all the harmful pathogens are killed and the weed seeds eliminated resulting in what is known as “Category A” compost. This designation, which is established by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME), is only given to compost that is free of harmful pathogens, bacteria and weed seeds plus it doesn’t exceed the set levels of heavy metals. As a matter of fact, The Real Thing is one of the few products in Canada to carry the Category A seal of approval. It also meets the certification standards of the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

A hit with farmers and gardeners

Farmers are seeing good results when using The Real Thing Farm Compost. Increased yields, resistance to diseases like fusarium, sclerotinia and pythium plus higher levels of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium in the soil, to name a few.

Agriculture isn’t the only industry to benefit from using the product. The City of Calgary chose the compost for city parks and playing fields. Ermter says the product is well suited for this kind of application because it “enhances the soil condition by adding additional organic material to make the grass healthier and able to hold moisture more efficiently.”

Of course, if it’s good for farmland and for playgrounds, it’s going to be good for gardens. Ermter advises that while the compost will improve the quality of existing soils, it’s only a soil conditioner.

“We believe that consumers want to know what they’re putting in their gardens, parks and playgrounds,” he says. “And now with The Real Thing, there is a product that meets those standards.”

The Real Thing is available through greenhouses and garden centres across Western Canada and at Agricore’s Agro Centres throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Peace River District of British Columbia.

Rotten to the core

According to Calgary-based horticulturist and gardener Donna Balzer, home composting is an easy way to take care of organic waste and contribute to healthy soil. Here are some basics to get you started:

• Compost all your kitchen greens such as apple cores, peelings, old lettuce, ends of cabbage, orange peels, grapefruit rinds, bean nibs, coffee grounds, entire pumpkins after Halloween, eggs and crusts of bread.
• Collect yard and kitchen wastes in one location like a bin.
• Keep the pile cool enough and worms, insects and various fellow travelers will help the microbes out.
• Turn the pile two to three times a week to add oxygen and keep the smell down. The microorganisms that smell are the ones that survive without oxygen.
• If the pile is too stinky, you either aren’t turning it enough or you have too much of the nitrogen rich green stuff and too little of the dry, carbon rich stuff.
• For apartment or condo dwellers without a backyard, vermicomposting is a great way to take care of food wastes. A brown bedding of shredded paper provides the foundation for the compost pile. As bacteria and fungi begin to decompose the material from kitchen scraps, the worms – manure worms or red wigglers – take over. They eat the ingredients and the bedding producing worm castings or feces that make an excellent finished compost.

So go ahead. Collect those kitchen scraps, throw them in a bin and let Mother Nature do the rest.