Anyone used soybean meal?

[country lady]

I read recently that soybean meal is very good for the soil. My clay soil is lacking nitrogen. Have any of you tried this?

 

[hoodat]

Soybean meal is a good fertilizer but cottonseed meal is just as good and usually cheaper.

 

[lesa]

Nearly all soybean is grown from GMO seeds- if that matters to you. Do you have chickens? My garden loves chicken poop!

 

[wifezilla]

I use poopy duck bedding as my nitrogen source. I think soy is crap as far as a food source. Not sure about what it does to the soil...I just refuse to eat it.

 

[hoodat]

I'm assuming the altered DNA would break down in the soil. I doubt very much it could be transmitted through the roots.

 

[country lady]

Thanks for your hints. Yes, GMO does matter, and I do have six laying hens but that's not a lot of manure. We do use a tad of soy sauce in stir fry but not otherwise. I will check into cottonseed meal. It's hard to get around chemicals and GMO seeds. I put blood meal in the bottom of holes when I plant but that gets expensive.

 

[digitS']

You won't get away from GMO's with cottonseed meal either, Country Lady. And, you may not get away from them with alfalfa pellets.

Nearly all of our livestock feeds will have those varieties.

There are organic fertilizers that are mostly animal products. They are less expensive than blood meal. Unfortunately, organic fertilizers are more expensive than livestock feed. I resent that. I think it only reflects market demand and competition. Those costs don't have anything to do with profit margins.

One of these days, I may switch from organic fertilizer in the veggies to using chicken feed! Well, probably not . . . I am willing to BUY chicken fertilizer as an ingredient in compost, however. I used to use bagged chicken manure regularly in the corn patch.

Steve

 

[hoodat]

My grandpa had a saying for everything. he used to say,"Chicken manure is like dynamite. If you don't watch out it will blow the plants clear out of the ground". As a tyke I used to hide and watch hoping to see that but I never did.

 

[obsessed]

I use the cotton seed meal in my organic fertilizer from mother earth news. I guess it is not totally organic but what else can I do.

 

[country lady]

It's a frustrating age that we live in. I assume cottonseed meal would have lots of chemicals in it. Cotton farmers use lots of chemicals. I have a photo taken of my farmer grandfather before 1929 and he was dusting cotton with a poison. I checked into organic chicken feed but the shipping is very high. I feed my ladies lots of other things. Hoodat, I love to read Grit magazine and another years ago mag. Kinda like another world back then.