$16 for 100 lbs....I'm sooo jealous! I went to our local feed store just the other day. They carry 18lb bags of cotton seed meal for $23 I think it was. I can't get corn meal around here at all and I have to special order the alfalfa meal at $15.99 for 50 lb bag.

The cotton seed meal bag said that it is good for acid loving plants so it supposedly does affect ph, at least eventually.

Researching CSM, I found a tidbit of information that one needs to use 9 lbs of lime to negate the ph changing abilities of 100 lbs of CSM. Not sure I used the right termonology there but hopefully you get my meaning.

http://www.dirtworks.net/Organic-Fertilizer/Cotton-Seed-Meal.html

The problem with seed meals today is you have no way of knowing if they are Genetically Modified, whether they are organically grown is the least of the concerns. Compost, much less expensive, is much better for the soil anyway and compost you make yourself is even better since you would be utilizing waste material that otherwise would go to the landfill.

The other night my biology professor and text mentioned that man has been manipulating the genetics of plants and animals since the beginning of agriculture. I thought an interesting point.

Not to sound cliche but you'd probably be best to start with a soil test to get an idea of where you are starting before adding anything. I didn't know Cottonseed meal influenced soil ph until I read the bag. My soil is alreay in the optimal range for growing most vegetables so I don't want to add CSM or at least I wouldn't want to without considering lime also.

I personally am partial to alfalfa meal but it's the cheapest and most easily obtainable material in my area. Not to mention I make alfalfa tea for my roses. Before people remind us that plants grown in perfect soil don't need alfalfa meal, tea or any other fertilizer or amendment, let me assure them my soil is NOT perfect.

I've been sprinkling alfalfa meal, coffee grounds and supposedly organic rose fertilizer around the root zone of my roses during the growing season for a couple of years now. Sometimes I move the mulch, sometimes I don't. So far no ill effects have been noticed. Not crazy amounts mind you...maybe a cup each of the coffee and alfalfa plus whatever the directions of the rose food.

I know I haven't answered your questions. I hope others chime in soon as I am interested in hearing their thoughts towards AM,CSM and CM too. While no one doubts compost is great stuff for the garden, the reality of it is that compost takes time, material, and space. Sometimes we don't have all three of those in the proper proportions to our garden size.

PS I could have sworn I went back and fixed the typo spelling on terminology in my first response before submitting it, I guess not<:->

Well, I did a just a little snooping on genetically modified organisms. I must say that come Wednesday my biology teacher is going to have some explaining to do. His statement of humans messing with genetics since the beginning of agriculture, while very true, is just a little too simplified when it comes to the more modern ways of playing with genetics that are out there today.

Sorry Kossetx, I didn't mean to take over your thread but after poking around the internet I could see where I left myself wide open for the more passionate people that come to this particular forum.

I am by no means a rocket scientist but even I can see that trying to cross an Arctic fish with a tomato to get a more cold resistant tomato plant is probably not a good idea.

Soybean meal is the grain meal highest in nitrogen if that's what you want. Yes, it is nearly all GM although I don't understand how that can pose any threat to your soil. Not using it may be an ethical issue for some, but I see no environmental harm to the soil from it's use. I believe most cotton is also GM these days.

You can roughly calculate the nitrogen by finding out the protein percentage. The exact number to divide the protein percentage escapes me at the moment, but I am pretty sure it's either 6.25 or 6.75.

Soybean meal is usually around 48% protein which makes it around 7% nitrogen.

Is there any advantage to mixing meals, like maybe to balance out the trace elements or the speed at which their nutrients are made available?

Shellva, it appears that you have found that the Genetic Modification being done today in the laboratory is not the same thing that happens when plants are pollinated. Man is inserting stuff into plants today that would never tget there under normal breeding methods and that is the concern because no testing has been done to see if this is good for humans and animals or not.
Soybeans are the most poisoned products we have next to cotton and are mostly all GMO products today. Corn is approaching that, and the companies interested in this are expanding into wheat and other grains. Very few of the seed meals you can purchase on the open market today are free of GMO organisms, something unacceptable to an organic gardener or farmer, unless you want to contaminate your soil.

grains are much cheaper than compost. Get your facts right kim...

all these talks about gmo bs is porbably overblown. even dr igham didnt bring these issue up at all in one of many posts...

I'll leave the gmo issues aside for the moment.

Compost is a soil amendment rather than fertilizer. Compost has abundant micronutrients but assays low in N, P and K (1-1 and less than 1% potassium). Also, the nutrients are primarily tied up in the organic fraction of the compost and thus are slowly released. The half life of compost is approximately one year, more rapid in subtropical and tropical soils and slower in temperate and wet soils.

So, over ten years of annual or biennial compost applications, compost can supply seasonally steady supplies of macro and micro nutrients.

After 14 years my current cropping beds hardly need additional fertilizer to supplement biennial composting. We water in transplants with fish-kelp emulsions and perhaps sidedress with organic fertilizers highish in nitrogen on heavy-feeding crops. We also add more soluable organic fertilizers during the colder months. We farm organic vegetables and fruit year round here in SoCal.

Blood meal (8-10%), fishmeal (6-10% and feathermeal (10-12%) are higher in nitrogen but or animal products. Most seedmeals have between 5-8% nitrogen and small amounts of other nutrients. Leafmeals, such as alfalfa or kelp, have better mix of nutrients and growth hormones useful in the garden.

"grains are much cheaper than compost."

My cost for making compost, even factoring in the fuel used to haul the leaves from town and my time at $17.98 per hour, is way less than $16.00 per 100 pounds, more around $2.10 per 100 pounds of compost.

Soybeans are one of the most heavily sprayed crops there are, along with cotton, so just the pesticide residue that might be there would be enough to deter someone that is organically minded.

You are so clueless Kim.

One bag of soybean meal can cover 2500 sqft and it cost me 9 dollars. I'd have to pay over 100 dollars for the compost to cover the same amount of area and a lot more labor.

No thanks... I'll stick to mulch and soybean meal and alfalfa meal.

Very small percentage even have room to make enough compost anyway.

Thanks for the replies.

Shellva, It helps to live in the land of cotton, and cattle. I guess it's out though because I don't need to lower the ph of my already acid soil.

Justaguy2, I forgot about soybean meal. I bet it's not too expensive either. I have to check.

Lou, I take it you haven't had any problems with your GM soybean meal. I'll try it. Are there any problems with varmints and meals? I sure don't want to feed them if I use it on my lawn. Everthing from fire ants to coyote's reside here.

A lot of my soil is tough. I've found putting compost and mulch on top of the soil does little for me. By spiking food 12' into the ground it will eventually change in that area by allowing the amendment to be in the soil.

Thanks! MP

For what it is worth under the USDA's National Organic Program cottonseed meal is typically not allowed I believe due to the extensive use of pesticides that are essentially sprayed right on the seed. Soybean meal is allowed and corn gluten meal is only if it is non-gmo. I think the distinction is that the GMO's in soybeans are to tolerate roundup and the GMO's in corn are an insecticide.

Cottonseed meal is allowable if certified to have come from organic cotton where no synthetic herbicide is used to defoliate the cotton prior to picking. The NOP disallows gmos and byproducts from use in certified organic production. I'm not aware of exceptions, but I haven't checked recently with OMRI, the private company that tests/evaluates products for use by certified organic producers and processors.

marshallz10, I think you are right about the cotton meal, I looked into it once. The trouble is that there is not a lot of organic cotton grown and the seed that is produced is not kept separate from the conventional for milling.

I am sure that regular (GMO) soybean meal can be used for fertilizer (not feed or food) under NOP rules.

Kossetx, you may need some wildflowers and cover crops to go with that cottonseed meal. They're easy, beautiful ways to wake up soil, and I've had good luck combining them to good effect. Fall to spring, crimson clover and bachelor buttons work great and bloom together (to Z 6, anyway). In summer, I liked crowder peas with orange sulphur cosmos. The legumes and flowers produced lots of natural nitrogen and organic matter and the beneficial insects loved them. I mowed between plantings (twice a year). The soil got better...

Here is a link that might be useful: my website

Don't foget about trace minerals. Last year I applied 1/2 lb. each of granite meal and kelp meal per 100 sq. ft. to provide a traces boost. Regards, Peter.

From a document dated 11 Dec 2000: Organic Materials Review Institute Genetic Engineering Considerations in the Evaluation of Inputs for Organic Farming and Food Processing

"Soy meal as fertilizer  The trait of ÂRoundup Ready-ness is not expressed in soy meal used as a
nitrogen source. Therefore, it is not considered a GMO and is allowed for use as a soil amendment."

Is this too old of a document? Is this still OMRI's view?

From this I read that soybean meal (most likely GMO, see below)is okay for a soil amendment.

(Colorado State Univ, Dec 2006, "Organic Fertilizer" states:
"Almost half of the conventionally grown soy is GMO")

Sorry to come to the discussion late.

Rude posts are unacceptable. You only succeed in making yourself look bad. Cultivating civility is something a certain poster might want to think about. One can disagree without being rude about it. Each person here is entitled to their opinion and personal experience.

Personally, I do not use GM. I will not give one penny of my hard earned money to the Monsanto thugs and their ilk. If somebody choses to support GM because it suits their budget, that is a personal choice. I will simply say that I have a different perspective.

Lorna

lorna-organic said "Rude posts are unacceptable. "

I agree. why isn't the moderator banning this guy?

I am curious, is the rude post still up? What level of rudeness is required to cause banishment?

I have no idea as to what level of rudeness causes banishment. Possibly it varies from thread to thread, moderator to moderator. Perhaps somebody actually has to make a complaint. If somebody was banished, the group would probably be unaware. The banished poster simply wouldn't be posting anymore.

I wanted to address the matter because I was offended even though the mean post was not directed to me. Friendly debate is interesting and often amusing. I think being mean, rude or attempting to make somebody else look bad, because opinions or experiences differ, is uncool as well as self-defeating.
Lorna

Who?

Lorna-organic wrote:

Friendly debate is interesting and often amusing. I think being mean, rude or attempting to make somebody else look bad, because opinions or experiences differ, is uncool as well as self-defeating.

I agree.

The experiences and opinions people offer here have many, many times made my life and my garden better. This also applies to direct and open disagreements, where people care about their views and, at times, express their opinions strongly.

However, name-calling is (IMO) an expression of frustration. Which often happens when people lose respect, and then they stop talking respectfully and honestly.

I'd also like to point out we're in the last week of February, and gardeners especially (in the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere) are often feeling a touch of cabin fever at this time of year. Not saying that forgives anything.

Just saying, it calls on every one of us to be a touch more careful of each other. And also, a touch more careful about what we say, and how. :)

And I do mean every one of us.

All the best,
-Patrick

Ahh, more psychotherapy. Thanks, Patrick. :)

Shoot, Marshall. I was mostly talking about myself. :) But thank you.

All the best,
-Patrick
(who is waiting for that @#$%^&*! snow to melt...)

So soy is better then cotton seed mill.

Buyer beware. If you are considering the use of cotton, soy or corn products that are not organic - be informed and make your choice. Personally, I never serve anything I wouldn't eat and that includes veggies grown in GMO meals. You can bet the cheap ones are not organic.

Is there a label warning on GMO meals or are we to find it some other way.

Jolj,
the vast majority soy grown in the US is GMO. It won't be labelled, but you can pretty much just assume that it contains GMO's. Almost half of the US corn crop is GMO.

Here is a link that might be useful: GM factsheet

I thought that they sounded wrong but that was the link I found fastest. Should have just checked wikipedia. "According to National Agricultural Statistics Service, the states published in these tables represent 81�86 percent of all corn planted area, 88�90 percent of all soybean planted area, and 81�93 percent of all upland cotton planted area (depending on the year)." (wikipedia on Genetically modified organisms.)

Based on the many, many thousands of acres of soybeans I've seen grown around here over the many years recently, I'd say that soybeans are one of the LEAST sprayed crops (excluding milo, the least). A decent stand of beans is so darned thick and tall less than half way into the season the weeds can't compete. The fools who don't follow good rotation practices deserve the weeds they get and their associated costs.

During dry years, the stands aren't too good and the weeds do better but don't usually get sprayed any later in the year as it does no good to spray many weeds once they are far enough into their life cycle, it won't kill them, waste of spray and money.

Don't whine about GM beans with a hunk of affordable beef stuffed in your pie hole.

Can anyone please let me know as to how to make alfalfa meal ?

Can anyone please let me know as to how to make alfalfa meal from alfalfa sprouts ?