heat treated manure vs Mulch (woodchips)

[EvilFruit]

Since i live in a desert I'm looking to add more organic matter to my soil. Woodchips is certainly a better choice for me because of low sodium content. However, the price of one bag of mulch is around $10 for 10kg (22lb). Which is more expensive than a bag of NPK (I'm not kidding).

I can also get a bag of heat treated manure (cow&chicken) straight from the factory but i have to drive 155km (100 miles) from my home .Each bag cost around $2.8 for 25kg (55lb).

Same product
http://www.ebff.ae/images/pdf/26.pdf

Any suggestion ?

[Saltcayman]

Not sure what the heat does to the manure...
If you have very little rain/ moisture, it will take a long time for wood chips to break down as a mulch and provide organic matter for your soil.  Manure may have too much nutrients and salts. For me, coir made from shredded coconut husks is a quick way to get organic matter into soil and it comes in compressed blocks that you hydrate before incorporating.Peat moss is also good as a soil amendment and will help lower ph.  Casuarina needles are excellent. They break down quickly as a mulch even with low rainfall. Hope this helps

[Saltcayman]

One more thing..  If you have a source of scrub wood, you could invest in a wood chipper and make your own wood chips. They may take a long time to break down but they will help retain moisture and cool roots

[Vernmented]

Biochar may be an somewhat permanent option.

[DurianLover]

Good question. I was wondering about it myself. Manure is probably better short term as it contains complete NPK in small amounts. Which would be better long term amendment for soil health and bio mass creation?  Wood shavings or cow manure? Don't have access to chips, but plenty of free composted wood dust from saw mills around.

[EvilFruit]

Not sure what the heat does to the manure...
If you have very little rain/ moisture, it will take a long time for wood chips to break down as a mulch and provide organic matter for your soil.  Manure may have too much nutrients and salts. For me, coir made from shredded coconut husks is a quick way to get organic matter into soil and it comes in compressed blocks that you hydrate before incorporating.Peat moss is also good as a soil amendment and will help lower ph.  Casuarina needles are excellent. They break down quickly as a mulch even with low rainfall. Hope this helps

According to the manufacture the heat treatment is used to get rid of harmful pathogens. It comes in powder form, similar to potting soil in appearance and can be easily mixed with the native soil.

I can buy Peat moss block for $20 (3.5cubic feet) and usually it's cheaper than coconut coir.

Thanks for your help.

[EvilFruit]

Biochar may be an somewhat permanent option.

Can't get that.

Thanks

[EvilFruit]

Good question. I was wondering about it myself. Manure is probably better short term as it contains complete NPK in small amounts. Which would be better long term amendment for soil health and bio mass creation?  Wood shavings or cow manure? Don't have access to chips, but plenty of free composted wood dust from saw mills around.

If I were you I'll add both , manure and wood dust. Adding Salt to your soil by using manure  shouldn't be an issue in your place because You get plenty of rain.

[EvilFruit]

One more thing..  If you have a source of scrub wood, you could invest in a wood chipper and make your own wood chips. They may take a long time to break down but they will help retain moisture and cool roots

I'll try to find wood chipper/shredder but, that wouldn't be easy.

[Pancrazio]

Optimal fertilization would require both of them. Wood chip is slow to decompose, but the humus resulting from wood is long lasting, does miracles for soil structure, helps retaining nutrients from fertilization from leaching and so on. On the other hand wood alone imparts to the soil a net loss of nitrogen, so unless you provide a source of nitrogen, and your soil hasn't physical issues, you may be better without wood than with wood alone.
Also, if you have access to bark, that is even better than wood from a mineral content point of view.
Manure can add the required nitrogen, while containing some residual plant matter. Ideal proportions should be 50:50, but they require plenty of water and time, after being mixed evenly, before being mixed to the soil.
Naturally, your local availability of rain may result in some other necessary adjustment.

[skhan]

That's a pretty interesting problem, as you said before building your soil is the best long term solution. And as others have said, decomposition is going to take a longer time due to the dryness.

How big is the land space your trying to build up?

Here are my suggestions (this will probably take a few years):
1. Plant well adapted fast growing trees to provide shade and trimming, use the chop and drop technique (What works well for me is pigeon peas). Fill up your yard
Shade should help retain some water and the free mulch goes into building your soil. If you have enough time this could be sufficient to build up your soil. Convert free carbon in the air and sunlight to soil, all you need is time unfortunately 
2. Grab whatever organic material you can find and throw it in your yard, preferable under the trees ^ (palm fronds, stumps, leaves, coconut husk, kitchen scraps basically anything that will decompose)
Hopefully putting them under the trees will speed up the decomposition and benefit the tree with added nutrition. 
3. While this is going on plant the tree you actually want so they benefit from the shade while they're young.
4. If you have really good drainage (which i assume you do), not humidity and blistering heat you really need to do something to hold moisture longer in your yard. I would try the industrial spill cleaners or cat liter (non toxic obviously)
I dont know if this is the best idea, hopefully others will chime in, but if you work this into you soil and then put a layer of mulchy stuff on top, at least this will help decomposition. I assume this might be relatively cheap per pound

Have you tried bother the local grocery stores and restaurants for kitchen waste. Maybe you can work out of deal a few fresh fruits/vegetables for a bag of vegetable scraps.

To answer your question specifically i would go with the manure since its cheaper and then work it into your soil so it doesn't all blow away.

[Doglips]

Heat treating will kill weed seeds, common stuff in manure.

[treefrog]

i would suggest "all of the above."  manure, wood chips, coir, peat moss, and anything else that's available and cheap.  free is better.  anything that once lived will live again.  seaweed with the surface salt washed off, agricultural or food processing wastes (fruit peels, egg shells, coffee grounds, vegetable peelings, crab and shrimp shells, nut shells - including peanut, etc)  if you can, run it through a compost pile.  if that's not convenient, spread it on the soil and till it in.  top dress with something cosmetic like bark mulch if appearance is a consideration.
more is better within reason.  adding more from time to time is better yet.

[Droshi]

Keep in mind, he's in Dubai. Nothing there is free (except sand)! And just about everything is imported. I think even sand is imported (or more accurately moved from one place to another)!

I would just suggest the general as above, whatever you can get your hands on, go for it. Likely nothing will be cheap, but something like wood chips is nice because it will help act more as a sponge to hopefully counteract the sand below.

Look for any kind of yard waste from neighbors, calling up tree services that service public roads or the hotels around there (Atlantis etc seems to have decent greenery). Even local stuff (though still likely imported, but maybe not as far and cheaper) like palm fronds may work well enough.

Chipping is nice if you can get access to a chipper, but otherwise sticks you can build a hugelkultur bed with logs/sticks in the middle and adding whatever you can on top. The more you can grow, the more yard waste you'll produce and hopefully turn into your own mulch.

Dubai has access to anything you could think of, it's probably the most central port city around for world trade. But since nothing is really there locally, it all comes at a price. I'm sure OP knows that better than any of us, but best would be to see what is cheap enough relatively, then see if it will stay around, leeching all your good compost etc into the sand may ultimately just not be worth it.

Another alternative is to grow everything in pots and potting mix as you'll have to buy less material likely. Until you can start producing your own yard waste factory.

[treefrog]

dubai's a port.   that means there's some shoreline somewhere near.  gotta be seaweed, some driftwood or other flotsam.  pick out the plastic bits, wash off the surface salt, and bury the rest in trenches or pits and plant around them.  bucky fuller used to say "pollution" is just a word for resources nobody's found a way to harness.  is there a starbucks?  other coffee shops?  coffea arabica is the hometown crop.  there's  gotta be a lot of coffee grounds.  cut a deal with whoever cleans up at starbucks etc.  a couple bucks (a couple dirham?) for a five gallon bucket of grounds.  if it comes with paper filters, that's o.k.  paper filters break down into humus too.  i'll bet there are barber shops in dubai.  human hair is high in protein and  slowly breaks down  into nitrates.  adds texture to the soil too - think coir with nitrates.  cut a deal with whoever sweeps up at the barber shop.  check to see what people are throwing away.  dryer lint?  how much dryer lint does a big laundry operation generate per day?  i bet their clean up foreman would love to pocket a few bucks for a couple garbage bags full.  a trench full of dryer lint would act like a giant sponge, and slowly break down into a strip of improved soil.

[DurianLover]

  there's  gotta be a lot of coffee grounds.  cut a deal with whoever cleans up at starbucks etc.  a couple bucks (a couple dirham?) for a five gallon bucket of grounds.

I would have to guess fertilizing with coffee grounds by the buckets will acidify soil in excess for most plants. Unless one is growing a field of miracle fruits of course

[treefrog]

durianlover,
coffee grounds by the bucket all by themselves, you're probably right, but as part of "all of the above,"   ...if your other inputs include some  limy components like egg  shell, crabshell, etc, they all balance out and  ends up buffering each other.  the more components,the more diverse, the better.

[greenman62]

i get between 50 and 100lb of grounds from Starbucks every week.
they know me well there.
i asked what they did before i started coming by (1 yr ago)
and they showed me the back where they dumped the stuff in low spots in the ground.

this stuff makes great soil over time.
mushrooms and worms will break it down too.
when i use too much in the worm bin, they turn it into black goo.
the stuff grows seeds and plants like nothing else.
a great tea also...
not very good drainage at that point though, it needs brown material to balance it out.

and, sure... diversity is great,
but beans/seeds are made to contain everything needed to grow a plant.
a mango or avocado will grow for weeks with just water and air.

[EvilFruit]

I would like to thank everybody who contributed to this topic.

I have finally found  a source for cheap compost that are made from plant materials (wood, Grass, etc) at Tadweer (waste management center). Each bag will cost me $2 for 55lb and I'm going to buy 55 bags or over 3000lb of green Compost  .

[EvilFruit]

Optimal fertilization would require both of them. Wood chip is slow to decompose, but the humus resulting from wood is long lasting, does miracles for soil structure, helps retaining nutrients from fertilization from leaching and so on. On the other hand wood alone imparts to the soil a net loss of nitrogen, so unless you provide a source of nitrogen, and your soil hasn't physical issues, you may be better without wood than with wood alone.
Also, if you have access to bark, that is even better than wood from a mineral content point of view.
Manure can add the required nitrogen, while containing some residual plant matter. Ideal proportions should be 50:50, but they require plenty of water and time, after being mixed evenly, before being mixed to the soil.
Naturally, your local availability of rain may result in some other necessary adjustment.

I'll start with green compost first because it's just 20 minutes from my house. I'll buy animal manure later.

Thanks man

[Saltcayman]

The compost sounds like a great option.  Good luck!

Optimal fertilization would require both of them. Wood chip is slow to decompose, but the humus resulting from wood is long lasting, does miracles for soil structure, helps retaining nutrients from fertilization from leaching and so on. On the other hand wood alone imparts to the soil a net loss of nitrogen, so unless you provide a source of nitrogen, and your soil hasn't physical issues, you may be better without wood than with wood alone.
Also, if you have access to bark, that is even better than wood from a mineral content point of view.
Manure can add the required nitrogen, while containing some residual plant matter. Ideal proportions should be 50:50, but they require plenty of water and time, after being mixed evenly, before being mixed to the soil.
Naturally, your local availability of rain may result in some other necessary adjustment.

I'll start with green compost first because it's just 20 minutes from my house. I'll buy animal manure later.

Thanks man

[EvilFruit]

That's a pretty interesting problem, as you said before building your soil is the best long term solution. And as others have said, decomposition is going to take a longer time due to the dryness.

How big is the land space your trying to build up?

Here are my suggestions (this will probably take a few years):
1. Plant well adapted fast growing trees to provide shade and trimming, use the chop and drop technique (What works well for me is pigeon peas). Fill up your yard
Shade should help retain some water and the free mulch goes into building your soil. If you have enough time this could be sufficient to build up your soil. Convert free carbon in the air and sunlight to soil, all you need is time unfortunately 
2. Grab whatever organic material you can find and throw it in your yard, preferable under the trees ^ (palm fronds, stumps, leaves, coconut husk, kitchen scraps basically anything that will decompose)
Hopefully putting them under the trees will speed up the decomposition and benefit the tree with added nutrition. 
3. While this is going on plant the tree you actually want so they benefit from the shade while they're young.
4. If you have really good drainage (which i assume you do), not humidity and blistering heat you really need to do something to hold moisture longer in your yard. I would try the industrial spill cleaners or cat liter (non toxic obviously)
I dont know if this is the best idea, hopefully others will chime in, but if you work this into you soil and then put a layer of mulchy stuff on top, at least this will help decomposition. I assume this might be relatively cheap per pound

Have you tried bother the local grocery stores and restaurants for kitchen waste. Maybe you can work out of deal a few fresh fruits/vegetables for a bag of vegetable scraps.

To answer your question specifically i would go with the manure since its cheaper and then work it into your soil so it doesn't all blow away.

I don't have much space to plant on it. I have an area about 300ft by 250ft.

I have been dumping everything in my soil from wedding cakes, newspaper, kitchen wastes and even wheat flour but, I still need more.

Thanks man