No comments on the paper showing high quality turf can be maintain with only compost? That is interesting considering your comments in this thread.
Good morning Kiril, I had a feeling you'd leave me some presents this morning. You want my comments here they are.
The study only weakens your argument. First of all it was "low maintenance" turf not "high quality turf". The fertilizers they tested against were applied only once a year except for the ammonium sulfate which was applied 4x a year. That's not a typical fertilization schedule for high quality turf. Applying one treatment of 34-0-7 or 4 treatments of 21-0-0 sound doesn't sound like what a typical residential lawn receives?
The compost they used was 50% green waste and 50% biosolids. There is much debate on whether biosolids should be considered organic or not and nobody who gives any type of organic seal of approval considers biosolids organic. So for many people, this study is not applicable to organic lawn care but I'll go on.
Any application rate they tested for compost greater than 1/4" smothered the grass for months. No way a client would want their lawn unsightly for months.
1/4" of compost once a year did about the same as the fertilizer program which I already mentioned seems pretty crappy. For the 1/4" of compost they needed to spread 1,110 lbs of compost compared to 12 lbs of SRF and 20 lbs of AS but somehow it cost almost 5x
more to apply 12 lbs of fertilizer than it did to apply 1,110 lbs of compost. That doesn't make any sense so I'm not even going to look at those numbers. There isn't even a figure for delivery. Even if they picked it up themselves, theres the added cost for gas. You can pick up a 12 lb bag of fertilizer on a bicycle. Cost of SRF $10.08, cost of AS $2.80, cost of 1,110 lbs of compost $13.04.
By applying 1/4" of the compost/biosolid 4 times a year they got better results than the fertilizer which shouldn't come as surprise. At that application rate, they were delivering 8 lbs of N per 1,000 sq ft each year. That's twice the 4 lbs applied with the fertilizers. In addition you're spending more than 5x for material, and spreading
2.22 tons of material.
The cost of compost seems very low and it doesn't factor in either renting or owning a vehicle to transport it, the gas associated with transporting that much material or the delivery charges.
Spreading 1,110 lbs per 1k sq ft may not be so bad if you are just doing one lawn, but what if you have dozens of clients. It's easy to say "suck it up and spread compost" since you said you only have one lawn you still manage but someone doing this for all their clients, how many tons are they supposed to suck up? Now multiply that 4 times a year and it sounds even less pleasant.
Compare that to applying compost just once a year or every other year and using organic fertilizers to keep the lawn green and healthy. You'll get better results by just using one application of compost and it will be a lot easier and cheaper.
Compost looks great on paper but if you're the one out there doing the work, or have to pay guys enough to do the work for dozens of properties and manage to fit them all in a certain schedule, it doesn't look so good.
Running a business like this isn't what you do. Marcos apparently does this and he has clients that get just compost, clients that get compost and organic fertilizers and clients that just get organic fertilizers and he's been doing this for years. His opinion obviously means more because he has real world experience with all three applications as well as the experience he's had marketing them to his clients. You don't and all the research and test you do don't compare to him doing it as a business.
How sustainable is compost anyway? You have to build trucks to haul it around short distances. These trucks aren't built locally. They aren't as fuel efficent as long haul trucks and trains. All that gas, machinery and compost could probably be used to plant enough soybean or corn to fertilize the same area. Let the farmers have .75" of my compost, I'll keep .25" and buy some meal from them.
I'm also more with DCHall on this one. Compost is good, especially if you're low on organic matter but there are other ways to get organic matter that are cheaper and easier. The addition of fresh sources of food for your soil biology seems like a good idea.
I see it like this. They say you should recycle your grass clippings. In addition to adding organic matter you recycle nitrogen and water. If you bagged your clippings, let them dry out and brown out on the deck and then put them back into your law, all you are adding is organic matter.
There's nothing you've shown me that has swayed me. Sure you can fertilize your lawn with only compost but it doesn't seem cheap, easy or practical. I could keep my lawn green just by taking a wizz into my hose end sprayer once a week and spreading it around but I don't think the neighbors would like that too much. Talk about sustainable.
When someone like marcos can get all his clients over to only compost and his business is still doing as well I might change my mind. Until then I'm done with this discussion.
So what part of building sustainable systems don't you understand? Do I actually have to do all the labor too in order for a plan I design to be implemented? Really dude, your arguments are illogical at best. Do engineers build what they design?
It's all clear now. You want to come up with the plan that saves the planet and then expect these guys to do the hard work of spreading compost as well as figuring out how to make a living doing it while you watch and pat yourself on the back. You think these guys don't know about compost? You think if it was an easy sell people like Marcos wouldn't have much more clients on a mostly compost plan?
Anyone can come up with a plan on paper. Turning it into a sustainable business throughout the country is quite different.
Now go ahead and pick the one or two things you think I got wrong and pretend that makes everything I said wrong.