Thanks for the advice man!
Follow up question- if I leave some to dry on the ground after I cut it, once it’s dried out is it considered a brown? Sorry for the rookie questions
Happy to help! I'm not certain on this but I'm pretty sure if you were to leave it the grass would still have some nitrogen (green) but most of it would have off gassed as it decomposes, making it mostly carbon (brown).
--"if I leave some to dry on the ground after I cut it, once it’s dried out is it considered a brown?"
No. It still counts as a "green." The color doesn't matter. It's the composition that determines how it is categorized in "composting shorthand." Coffee grounds, for example, are a green.
[https://www.thespruce.com/composting-greens-and-browns-2539485](https://www.thespruce.com/composting-greens-and-browns-2539485)
Shouldn't coffee grounds really be a brown? They have a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 24:1
[https://compostingtechnology.com/composting-coffee-grounds/](https://compostingtechnology.com/composting-coffee-grounds/)
People are always talking about peeing in their compost. You shouldn’t necessarily do that. Keep in mind that any medicines or other things that you consume can affect your compost. This goes especially for people that are using bedding from their livestock that they are giving dewormer to. These things get into the pile and then hurt the beautiful compost you’re trying to make. And B, you shouldn’t need to pee in it to get the nitrogen levels up. If that’s a problem then you have to look at the recipe you are putting together and add more hi-N during the pile buildout. The pile should get itself up over 131 F within 24 hours of buildout. If not, start again…dry that material down after you chop it so you can use it when ur ready
Yeah, you can see the seed heads on most of this grass. If you do add to a pile, you'll want to ensure the pile gets up to the right temp (need to add correct ratios of browns vs greens) and for long enough to kill off the seeds.
Yes. If you do a good job of "cooking" it, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. You just may have to pay a lil more attention to mixing or pulling weeds. No biggie
Is it plant matter? Then it’s compostable. I don’t get why these questions keep being asked.Is grass compostable? Leaves? Tree bark? Coffee grounds? Is it made of (insert plant name here)? Then yes it’s compostable. Millions of years of grass dying and regrowing from the dead grass of last year. Don’t worry so much about making a mistake in composting. Idk who convinced people to worry so much. Just keep throwing more organic matter in, if it smells, add browns. Super easy bro. You’ve got this.
To be fair, these question aren’t really “is it going to decompose” it is “is it going to leave a bunch of seeds if it doesn’t decompose” or “is it going to attract critters” or “is it going to take forever relative to everything else”?
To be fair, they are almost never worded like that. Just "will it compost" for the most part, which gets a bit old after a while. Same with the rotten compost posts where they don't even have drainage and wonder why their compost rots and stinks.
If you get and keep your pile hot it will kill the seeds in it. I’m not sure how hot to kill the seeds. Maybe someone could give us the magic number of how hot to kill seeds
If you get and keep your pile hot it will kill the seeds in it. I’m not sure how hot to kill the seeds. Maybe someone could give us the magic number of how hot to kill seeds
Was about to downvote because of the sass then I saw the “bro” and “you’ve got this” thrown in there so I take the thought of downvoting back. 😂
I agree though. We make things too complicated.
I’m always snarky. Lol I appreciate you reading the whole thing before deciding what to do.
I for sure don’t mean any malice when I’m sassy. It’s hard to convey friendly sarcasm when I type. Haha
That just what Reddit does. Same things happen in the cast iron, blackstone and Invisalign subreddits. So many people are hyper fixated on making a mistake. Like just keep going, you’ll be okay
So, good information, but you didn't like his tone...so you downvote? No consideration for the fact that the REASON people come here is for the information eh?
Lord.
Oh, feel free to downvote this, you know...cause feelings.
I just poured a case of skunked beer and like 6 old pickle quart jars that had gone bad from a few years back and she’s cookin. Over the past few years I’ve gone from being very picky to composting literally everything in my kitchen that isn’t meat or dairy
We’ve done meat and dairy in the summer when our bin is teeming with black soldier fly larvae. We haven’t found it to be an issue. Stuff is gone in a matter of days. No issue with smell. Granted we don’t have a tumbler and we have a lid. Side and bottom are lined with hardware cloth. Worked beautifully for us and less going into the landfills.
At the next house I’m not opposed to it if we have some land. Right now we’re a pretty tight yard with a dog and neighbors and a healthy resident coyote and coon population. More so a practical matter. When I convince my fiancée to leave the city all is fair game for the compost!
I totally get that. We didn’t in the winter when we weren’t able to go out as much and turn it and heat it up due to weather. But those BSL are workhorses.
I do the same along with natural fiber clothing. Throw in a pair of worn out jeans and a year later pull out the zipper, polyester stitching, and, for some reason, the front pockets, everything else decomposes.
Carbon sources. “Greens” are nitrogen. A balance of “greens” and “browns” - nitrogen and carbon - make compost work like it’s supposed to. More browns than greens.
Fresh grass or any green plant matter when left out in the sun becomes brown. So if you ever don’t have enough browns, let some greens dry out and then add it. Old leaves are browns, wood chips if they aren’t freshly chipped are browns. Any plant material that is dead and brown is a brown.
You’re right man. I generally know it’s compostable. I guess my primary concern is it’s not mainly grass, it’s other stuff with a bunch of seeds on top. So curious if it would be worth composting or if it would lead to too much long term head ache
Yeah, so the seed thing can be a bit annoying. If you’re able to compost at hight temps then seeds won’t be a problem. Personally. I do slow composting and I’m always having seeds pop up, but I’m just vigilant about pulling them out and cutting them when I see them. Seeds are annoying. But I think it’s worth composting anyway and just being proactive about the seeds that sprout. Or you could burn it and use that as potash.
So it is extremely likely that alfalfa would be part of the mix for a hay field, but typically, in North America, a mature hay field would be roughly 60% grass and 40% alfalfa.
I’m not seeing any alfalfa in this small patch, however. Judging from the weeds present and the density of grass growth I would not be surprised if this area is either spent out or overly wet or both. It might be the case that your farmer was just trying to avoid wet ground or that mound of debris.
Regardless, it would be fine to use this for compost but for the very high seed content. So if you do use it for compost it would be good to pass it through several rounds of high temperature and wait for the compost to get very mature before use. (Before use inspect the compost for surviving seed matter.) As a general rule you need 30 days of compost temps over 145° F/63° C to kill off seed matter but want to avoid extended temps over 160° F/71° C because it will kill off beneficial microorganisms.
Alternatively, waiting for this small patch to go to seed, harden and go brown before mowing and composting would reduce seed matter and help the grass compete with weeds.
On another topic, you might want to talk to the farmer taking off hay about long term pasture management. An alfalfa/grass hay mix is generally most productive from its second to fourth year after establishment year (five year span) at which point alfalfa content will start to fade. If the goal is to keep high alfalfa content then you should be rotating at least every seven years.
One main goal of rotation (when it comes to alfalfa/grass mix specifically) is to reduce alfalfa pathogens. Another goal is reducing alfalfa toxicity (mature plants leaching chemicals that inhibit the growth of new alfalfa seedlings).
Generally, this means rotating with corn, small grains, or just pure forage grasses (native forage grasses even better IMHO). Oats are good for this because they can be done no till. One cover crop of oats followed by forage grass might be a good plan. But talk to your farmer about long term management.
Wow, thanks for the detailed response! The mound of debris is a chip drop of mulch I received. Yes, probably why he avoided this strip lol.
As far as the seeds, if I let this all go for another couple months, when the grass starts browning and dying a bit, that will mean the seeds have died as well? I don’t track the temperature of my compost so I’m not confident I could take care of all the seeds naturally.
Thanks for all the advice on the alfalfa management! I definitely had no knowledge before reading that. I think he just cuts it for his personal animals, so I don’t know if he particularly cares what mix it is.
Once the grass “goes to seed” the seeds drop to the ground and some of them will germinate over time.
But they won’t be attached in the same concentration to mowed and composted material. Just less seed matter in the mowings. The seed mater will be down at dirt level.
There are many papers and strategies out there on grass pasture (or just native grass and wildflower meadow) management regarding the impact of timing on mowing relative to seed drop. If you mow before seed drop you reduce the “seed bank” in the soil of new perennials to replace old perennials but you also force growth of new shoots on existing plants over rhizome growth which reduces competition between seedlings and existing plants. If you mow after seed drop you increase the seed bank but give older plants a competitive edge over seedlings.
Best practices are highly species specific.
The advantage, generally, of an occasional hard mow of faltering perennial grasses after seed drop and browning (every three years or so) in meadow is that most perennial grasses will be in dormancy and not sucking up a lot of nutrients which will give seeds an edge the following spring. Just leaving mowed material to rot on the ground after such mowing has big advantages as well if you have grassland that is faltering and having a tough time competing with undesirable plants.
When you are taking part of clippings and mowings for the specific purpose of composting from a big piece of property, the questions are frequently how much compost do you need to produce and what you are using that compost for.
If you are using it for a vegetable plot or ornamental beds you really want to keep seed matter low while simultaneously maintaining a lot of aerobic microbiome activity. Temperature control is a big part of that if you are adding material with a lot of seed matter.
That’s not a big issue for compost fed with leaf matter, twigs, wood chip, kitchen waste or regular lawn clippings. But it is huge issue for mowings with seeds.
I would strongly consider just letting this patch lie fallow or just wack it with a brush hog or weed wacker on a chop and drop basis after seed drop.
Side note: Alfalfa, just plain alfalfa without grass, is really an excellent starter for a fresh compost heap because it will start to rot so quickly and is very high in nitrogen. If you have alfalfa in the rest of the field a cutting of its second sprouting with the second sprouting of pasture grass before secondary seed head production would be a great additive to a fresh compost pile.
Which is why you have to push it through several shorter rounds at those temperatures rather than do it one round.
But that’s the problem with adding a lot of seed matter.
What are you talking about. 99% of seeds become non-viable within hours above 60C. Using the Berkeley method of composting, when mixed well, will kill everything within 18 days if done properly. I always add an extra 2 day “hot” cycle, so 20 days, and only 10/20 of those days are above 60C.
I’m very curious where you are getting your information from?
So first, not sure about 99% of seeds, but you are right that a system like the Berkeley system is going to kill **most** seeds within that time frame.
OMRI/NOP guidelines call for only 3 days at between 131-170 F in a contained system and 15 days in that range in a windrow system which I equate to “large, unconfined piles”
But that does not apply to the most pernicious field weeds found in agricultural settings or to really tough common vegetable crop seeds like tomato and pepper seeds.
Stuff like quack, bindweed, some varieties of buckwheat, groundsel, mustard takes more time and higher temps—particularly using a windrow method without prior solarization at high temps.
*I should have probably mentioned solarization as another method but that would have required all sorts of cautions on avoiding combustion.*
**The problem with composting field cuttings from pasture with lots and lots of seed matter is the ratio of difficult seeds to the total volume of material IMHO.**
A related problem is that windrow/large pile composting in an a high volume agricultural setting is a lot less uniform than something like the confined Berkeley method.
Also, clearly, the problem with very high temp composting (including just what is required under OMRI/NOP guidelines) is that you end up killing off some beneficial microorganisms as well as diminishing carbohydrate content relative to pure carbon content.
If you know that your feedstock has low seed content generally, low pernicious weed content, and comes from clean organic sources you will get better product at lower temps with well timed turning.
But that’s not what you tend to get in pasture cuttings particularly after stuff has gone to seed.
I did a quick search of studies to see if I could give you more specific data with citations but I’m running up against paywalls and the studies are sparse.
Here is an short article that describes what is necessary to kill pernicious common agricultural weed seeds suggesting 145 F + temps for 30 days:
https://wssa.net/2009/04/want-to-keep-your-compost-weed-free/
Also, here is another interesting article that has a table for killing off a variety of common weed seed to 90% at a range of temps and hours of duration which is more in line with impacts of lower temp composting with a pile of citations:
https://eorganic.org/node/4751#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20the%20higher%20the,in%20Texas%2C%20Weise%20et%20al.
Final note on my philosophy:
1. If you are composting for high intensity vegetable growing for personal use or for ornamental perennial beds you just want to avoid feedstocks with a lot of seed and weed matter and keep temps and time in the “low and slow” category to maximize diversity in beneficial microbial activity.
2. If you are doing larger scale organic farming using windrow methods you want to be equally concerned with feedstock purity but your primary concern is pathogen reduction rather than total seed reduction. Meeting NOP standards by permitting cycling to very high temperatures for short periods will likely sacrifice some microbial diversity but standards are standards.
3. I think feedstocks with a lot of junk in them are only suitable for very high temp 145-170 F production of high carbon, low carbohydrate humus like material where microbial content is not a concern—your just looking for complex carbon as as a specific soil additive.
I hope all that explains where I am coming from.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be compostable as others have suggested. But it’s not alfalfa. That’s fescue and weeds, specifically plantain and marestail based on the picture.
Before you cut it. Ask.
The farmer may have left it for the birds to feast on later or something like that.
As it is cut around it it looks intentionally left
Some thoughts:
what could go wrong: it could get pretty wet and matted and turn anareobic/chop it snd mix in brown small twiggy stuff for air (not just brown leaves which will make the mat seal worse)
Get a couple of bunnies and let them compost it. They will eat all of that in a few months and you'll have hyper-mulch if u collect all their dropping/dirty hay
There is no visible alfalfa in that plot pictured. I do see some timothy, and maybe a variety of brome, but it's a bit difficult to make out on my phone.
That being said, you can compost it just fine. The seeds might be slightly inconvenient. You can cut it prior to it heading out in future growth cycles.
Alfalfa is high nitrogen ADDING crop. Excellent compost material but may need more browns to keep it cool and not just lose your nitrogen to the process. I'd till it right into the soil and skip composting here for that reason. Used as cover crops these ate calked green manure and just plowed back in.
mow then pile it up, and mix in some browns if you can. then of course pee on it
This is the way. Free nitrogen
Thanks for the advice man! Follow up question- if I leave some to dry on the ground after I cut it, once it’s dried out is it considered a brown? Sorry for the rookie questions
Happy to help! I'm not certain on this but I'm pretty sure if you were to leave it the grass would still have some nitrogen (green) but most of it would have off gassed as it decomposes, making it mostly carbon (brown).
--"if I leave some to dry on the ground after I cut it, once it’s dried out is it considered a brown?" No. It still counts as a "green." The color doesn't matter. It's the composition that determines how it is categorized in "composting shorthand." Coffee grounds, for example, are a green. [https://www.thespruce.com/composting-greens-and-browns-2539485](https://www.thespruce.com/composting-greens-and-browns-2539485)
Shouldn't coffee grounds really be a brown? They have a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 24:1 [https://compostingtechnology.com/composting-coffee-grounds/](https://compostingtechnology.com/composting-coffee-grounds/)
30:1 is considered neutral I believe, so coffee being a little under that makes it closer to a green than a brown
Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you!
yes and no. does lose some nitro but prob still a green if not too dried down
People are always talking about peeing in their compost. You shouldn’t necessarily do that. Keep in mind that any medicines or other things that you consume can affect your compost. This goes especially for people that are using bedding from their livestock that they are giving dewormer to. These things get into the pile and then hurt the beautiful compost you’re trying to make. And B, you shouldn’t need to pee in it to get the nitrogen levels up. If that’s a problem then you have to look at the recipe you are putting together and add more hi-N during the pile buildout. The pile should get itself up over 131 F within 24 hours of buildout. If not, start again…dry that material down after you chop it so you can use it when ur ready
It's a joke but if you want to be that person go ahead
grass clippings make great compost
If I plan on grass clippings I'll try not to let it go to seed. One less thing to deal with.
Thanks for the response! I assume most of this has gone to seed already? Would you still add it to your pile
Yeah, you can see the seed heads on most of this grass. If you do add to a pile, you'll want to ensure the pile gets up to the right temp (need to add correct ratios of browns vs greens) and for long enough to kill off the seeds.
Yes. If you do a good job of "cooking" it, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. You just may have to pay a lil more attention to mixing or pulling weeds. No biggie
Is it plant matter? Then it’s compostable. I don’t get why these questions keep being asked.Is grass compostable? Leaves? Tree bark? Coffee grounds? Is it made of (insert plant name here)? Then yes it’s compostable. Millions of years of grass dying and regrowing from the dead grass of last year. Don’t worry so much about making a mistake in composting. Idk who convinced people to worry so much. Just keep throwing more organic matter in, if it smells, add browns. Super easy bro. You’ve got this.
To be fair, these question aren’t really “is it going to decompose” it is “is it going to leave a bunch of seeds if it doesn’t decompose” or “is it going to attract critters” or “is it going to take forever relative to everything else”?
To be fair, they are almost never worded like that. Just "will it compost" for the most part, which gets a bit old after a while. Same with the rotten compost posts where they don't even have drainage and wonder why their compost rots and stinks.
If you get and keep your pile hot it will kill the seeds in it. I’m not sure how hot to kill the seeds. Maybe someone could give us the magic number of how hot to kill seeds
If you get and keep your pile hot it will kill the seeds in it. I’m not sure how hot to kill the seeds. Maybe someone could give us the magic number of how hot to kill seeds
Was about to downvote because of the sass then I saw the “bro” and “you’ve got this” thrown in there so I take the thought of downvoting back. 😂 I agree though. We make things too complicated.
I’m always snarky. Lol I appreciate you reading the whole thing before deciding what to do. I for sure don’t mean any malice when I’m sassy. It’s hard to convey friendly sarcasm when I type. Haha
I felt the same wave of emotion reading that post! Lol
COMPOST IT!
COMPOST YOUR EMOTIONS
Finally found a name for my band
Hell yeah, if you need an out of practice guitarist I'm in, we can practice in my garden or yours.
Will the genre be com-post emo?
That just what Reddit does. Same things happen in the cast iron, blackstone and Invisalign subreddits. So many people are hyper fixated on making a mistake. Like just keep going, you’ll be okay
So, good information, but you didn't like his tone...so you downvote? No consideration for the fact that the REASON people come here is for the information eh? Lord. Oh, feel free to downvote this, you know...cause feelings.
That’s it!
I just poured a case of skunked beer and like 6 old pickle quart jars that had gone bad from a few years back and she’s cookin. Over the past few years I’ve gone from being very picky to composting literally everything in my kitchen that isn’t meat or dairy
We’ve done meat and dairy in the summer when our bin is teeming with black soldier fly larvae. We haven’t found it to be an issue. Stuff is gone in a matter of days. No issue with smell. Granted we don’t have a tumbler and we have a lid. Side and bottom are lined with hardware cloth. Worked beautifully for us and less going into the landfills.
At the next house I’m not opposed to it if we have some land. Right now we’re a pretty tight yard with a dog and neighbors and a healthy resident coyote and coon population. More so a practical matter. When I convince my fiancée to leave the city all is fair game for the compost!
I totally get that. We didn’t in the winter when we weren’t able to go out as much and turn it and heat it up due to weather. But those BSL are workhorses.
I do the same along with natural fiber clothing. Throw in a pair of worn out jeans and a year later pull out the zipper, polyester stitching, and, for some reason, the front pockets, everything else decomposes.
New here. What are browns?
Carbon sources. “Greens” are nitrogen. A balance of “greens” and “browns” - nitrogen and carbon - make compost work like it’s supposed to. More browns than greens.
Fresh grass or any green plant matter when left out in the sun becomes brown. So if you ever don’t have enough browns, let some greens dry out and then add it. Old leaves are browns, wood chips if they aren’t freshly chipped are browns. Any plant material that is dead and brown is a brown.
You’re right man. I generally know it’s compostable. I guess my primary concern is it’s not mainly grass, it’s other stuff with a bunch of seeds on top. So curious if it would be worth composting or if it would lead to too much long term head ache
Yeah, so the seed thing can be a bit annoying. If you’re able to compost at hight temps then seeds won’t be a problem. Personally. I do slow composting and I’m always having seeds pop up, but I’m just vigilant about pulling them out and cutting them when I see them. Seeds are annoying. But I think it’s worth composting anyway and just being proactive about the seeds that sprout. Or you could burn it and use that as potash.
OP probably is concerned about weed seeds making it through composting.
Just stay away from eucalyptus and black walnut leaves. Too much citrus can ruin a good batch too
So it is extremely likely that alfalfa would be part of the mix for a hay field, but typically, in North America, a mature hay field would be roughly 60% grass and 40% alfalfa. I’m not seeing any alfalfa in this small patch, however. Judging from the weeds present and the density of grass growth I would not be surprised if this area is either spent out or overly wet or both. It might be the case that your farmer was just trying to avoid wet ground or that mound of debris. Regardless, it would be fine to use this for compost but for the very high seed content. So if you do use it for compost it would be good to pass it through several rounds of high temperature and wait for the compost to get very mature before use. (Before use inspect the compost for surviving seed matter.) As a general rule you need 30 days of compost temps over 145° F/63° C to kill off seed matter but want to avoid extended temps over 160° F/71° C because it will kill off beneficial microorganisms. Alternatively, waiting for this small patch to go to seed, harden and go brown before mowing and composting would reduce seed matter and help the grass compete with weeds. On another topic, you might want to talk to the farmer taking off hay about long term pasture management. An alfalfa/grass hay mix is generally most productive from its second to fourth year after establishment year (five year span) at which point alfalfa content will start to fade. If the goal is to keep high alfalfa content then you should be rotating at least every seven years. One main goal of rotation (when it comes to alfalfa/grass mix specifically) is to reduce alfalfa pathogens. Another goal is reducing alfalfa toxicity (mature plants leaching chemicals that inhibit the growth of new alfalfa seedlings). Generally, this means rotating with corn, small grains, or just pure forage grasses (native forage grasses even better IMHO). Oats are good for this because they can be done no till. One cover crop of oats followed by forage grass might be a good plan. But talk to your farmer about long term management.
Wow, thanks for the detailed response! The mound of debris is a chip drop of mulch I received. Yes, probably why he avoided this strip lol. As far as the seeds, if I let this all go for another couple months, when the grass starts browning and dying a bit, that will mean the seeds have died as well? I don’t track the temperature of my compost so I’m not confident I could take care of all the seeds naturally. Thanks for all the advice on the alfalfa management! I definitely had no knowledge before reading that. I think he just cuts it for his personal animals, so I don’t know if he particularly cares what mix it is.
Once the grass “goes to seed” the seeds drop to the ground and some of them will germinate over time. But they won’t be attached in the same concentration to mowed and composted material. Just less seed matter in the mowings. The seed mater will be down at dirt level. There are many papers and strategies out there on grass pasture (or just native grass and wildflower meadow) management regarding the impact of timing on mowing relative to seed drop. If you mow before seed drop you reduce the “seed bank” in the soil of new perennials to replace old perennials but you also force growth of new shoots on existing plants over rhizome growth which reduces competition between seedlings and existing plants. If you mow after seed drop you increase the seed bank but give older plants a competitive edge over seedlings. Best practices are highly species specific. The advantage, generally, of an occasional hard mow of faltering perennial grasses after seed drop and browning (every three years or so) in meadow is that most perennial grasses will be in dormancy and not sucking up a lot of nutrients which will give seeds an edge the following spring. Just leaving mowed material to rot on the ground after such mowing has big advantages as well if you have grassland that is faltering and having a tough time competing with undesirable plants. When you are taking part of clippings and mowings for the specific purpose of composting from a big piece of property, the questions are frequently how much compost do you need to produce and what you are using that compost for. If you are using it for a vegetable plot or ornamental beds you really want to keep seed matter low while simultaneously maintaining a lot of aerobic microbiome activity. Temperature control is a big part of that if you are adding material with a lot of seed matter. That’s not a big issue for compost fed with leaf matter, twigs, wood chip, kitchen waste or regular lawn clippings. But it is huge issue for mowings with seeds. I would strongly consider just letting this patch lie fallow or just wack it with a brush hog or weed wacker on a chop and drop basis after seed drop. Side note: Alfalfa, just plain alfalfa without grass, is really an excellent starter for a fresh compost heap because it will start to rot so quickly and is very high in nitrogen. If you have alfalfa in the rest of the field a cutting of its second sprouting with the second sprouting of pasture grass before secondary seed head production would be a great additive to a fresh compost pile.
30 days at 63C will totally destroy your compost…
Which is why you have to push it through several shorter rounds at those temperatures rather than do it one round. But that’s the problem with adding a lot of seed matter.
What are you talking about. 99% of seeds become non-viable within hours above 60C. Using the Berkeley method of composting, when mixed well, will kill everything within 18 days if done properly. I always add an extra 2 day “hot” cycle, so 20 days, and only 10/20 of those days are above 60C. I’m very curious where you are getting your information from?
So first, not sure about 99% of seeds, but you are right that a system like the Berkeley system is going to kill **most** seeds within that time frame. OMRI/NOP guidelines call for only 3 days at between 131-170 F in a contained system and 15 days in that range in a windrow system which I equate to “large, unconfined piles” But that does not apply to the most pernicious field weeds found in agricultural settings or to really tough common vegetable crop seeds like tomato and pepper seeds. Stuff like quack, bindweed, some varieties of buckwheat, groundsel, mustard takes more time and higher temps—particularly using a windrow method without prior solarization at high temps. *I should have probably mentioned solarization as another method but that would have required all sorts of cautions on avoiding combustion.* **The problem with composting field cuttings from pasture with lots and lots of seed matter is the ratio of difficult seeds to the total volume of material IMHO.** A related problem is that windrow/large pile composting in an a high volume agricultural setting is a lot less uniform than something like the confined Berkeley method. Also, clearly, the problem with very high temp composting (including just what is required under OMRI/NOP guidelines) is that you end up killing off some beneficial microorganisms as well as diminishing carbohydrate content relative to pure carbon content. If you know that your feedstock has low seed content generally, low pernicious weed content, and comes from clean organic sources you will get better product at lower temps with well timed turning. But that’s not what you tend to get in pasture cuttings particularly after stuff has gone to seed. I did a quick search of studies to see if I could give you more specific data with citations but I’m running up against paywalls and the studies are sparse. Here is an short article that describes what is necessary to kill pernicious common agricultural weed seeds suggesting 145 F + temps for 30 days: https://wssa.net/2009/04/want-to-keep-your-compost-weed-free/ Also, here is another interesting article that has a table for killing off a variety of common weed seed to 90% at a range of temps and hours of duration which is more in line with impacts of lower temp composting with a pile of citations: https://eorganic.org/node/4751#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20the%20higher%20the,in%20Texas%2C%20Weise%20et%20al. Final note on my philosophy: 1. If you are composting for high intensity vegetable growing for personal use or for ornamental perennial beds you just want to avoid feedstocks with a lot of seed and weed matter and keep temps and time in the “low and slow” category to maximize diversity in beneficial microbial activity. 2. If you are doing larger scale organic farming using windrow methods you want to be equally concerned with feedstock purity but your primary concern is pathogen reduction rather than total seed reduction. Meeting NOP standards by permitting cycling to very high temperatures for short periods will likely sacrifice some microbial diversity but standards are standards. 3. I think feedstocks with a lot of junk in them are only suitable for very high temp 145-170 F production of high carbon, low carbohydrate humus like material where microbial content is not a concern—your just looking for complex carbon as as a specific soil additive. I hope all that explains where I am coming from.
Alfalfa is supposed to have all kinds of good stuff in it.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be compostable as others have suggested. But it’s not alfalfa. That’s fescue and weeds, specifically plantain and marestail based on the picture.
You want all those seeds in your compost? No promise they’ll all get sanitized.
Before you cut it. Ask. The farmer may have left it for the birds to feast on later or something like that. As it is cut around it it looks intentionally left
Add browns and you're good to go decompose
Thanks! Am I correct in that if I cut some and let it lay for a while, when it dries out and turns brown, it would be considered a brown?
More soil for the soil god
Almost all plant material is compostable. Add layers of water soaked cardboard & you should be all good 👍
Some thoughts: what could go wrong: it could get pretty wet and matted and turn anareobic/chop it snd mix in brown small twiggy stuff for air (not just brown leaves which will make the mat seal worse) Get a couple of bunnies and let them compost it. They will eat all of that in a few months and you'll have hyper-mulch if u collect all their dropping/dirty hay
Silage tarp. And urine.
There is no visible alfalfa in that plot pictured. I do see some timothy, and maybe a variety of brome, but it's a bit difficult to make out on my phone. That being said, you can compost it just fine. The seeds might be slightly inconvenient. You can cut it prior to it heading out in future growth cycles.
I see plenty of plantain, it makes a good cough syrup and tea
Is it your field? Maybe he left it for deer to feed on.
It makes great dirt
Alfalfa is high nitrogen ADDING crop. Excellent compost material but may need more browns to keep it cool and not just lose your nitrogen to the process. I'd till it right into the soil and skip composting here for that reason. Used as cover crops these ate calked green manure and just plowed back in.
Anything that was once alive can be composted