The squash grew quite well because of the nutrients available in that compost but the squash did not "turn the pilke into compost". Growing that squash there may have created conditions that stimulated the bacteria that make compost into working harder to do that.

The squash were planted in manure,sawdust, urine soaked peat moss and old hay, not compost (that is the point).........obviously the squash did not turn the pile into compost magically, but the bacterial, biological activity did the job in a very short time.......just wondering if others have experienced this

It's a fascinating report and I don't have a ready explanation for it.

What would be different between the two piles? I think you've listed everything: the plant roots vs. nothing growing, and shade from the leaves.

It's possible the shade kept moisture in and the temperature down, so the microherd (I'm thinking worms especially) found the conditions more favorable.

Did you water the squash and not the other piles?

I never watered since the piles have a natural moisture coming from the barn and here on the Atlantic coast we get plenty of rain so I think watering is not the issue.......the worms were very active in the squash rows, slightly less so I would guess in the unplanted row.......since I intentionally planted the buttercups very close together I keep coming back to the action of the plant roots working through the loose manure, hay, sawdust row.......that along with the heavy canopy of big leaves kept the rows moist all summer, unlike the unplanted row which dried out a bit in the top inch or two of depth...

Did you plant the squash from seeds or from starter plants? If from starter plants, then maybe the roots/soil contained microorganisms that hit the ground (pile) ready to go.

Claire

Very interesting. Last spring, I planted squash plants in a fresh lasagna pile. 2 plants grew enormously, probably 14 feet square, produced 45 large acorn squash but I don't think the pile broke down more than usual. So I would expect that the roots of your closely planted squash were what broke yours down. Did you get many squash off your plants?

I planted the windrows with seeds, not transplants, and had a great harvest both in quality and quantity....I started planting in very fresh manure/hay/sawdust(6 month old piles) 15 years ago with trepidation as it seemed somehow not quite right to plant in such hot, steaming, raw materials but the experiment worked and I have done so ever since......I don't think I would dare try anything other than squash in hot fresh piles........

With respect to transplants-as-inoculators, I suspect having the piles on the ground, plus having them full of horse poo which is LOADED with microbes, would far outweigh any tiny contribution from potting soil. JMHO.

What I'm getting at, and I certainly could be wrong, is that mycorrhizal fungi associated with the squash plant roots could be at work here. The fungi would rapidly proliferate out into the compost piles and form an association between the roots and the pile, breaking down the compost components in the process and feeding the plant with goodies. Squash are one of many plant types with endo-mycorrhizal dependencies.

Banjonique says that piles without squash are much slower finishing, so the endogenous microbes aren't as efficient.

Perhaps seeds also contain the mycorrhizal fungi carried over from their previous growth. Were these squash seeds obtained from last year's growth on compost piles? Maybe the fungi are being selected for rapid growth in these compost piles (yum).

Claire

Fungus, I could believe that. It is amazing stuff. I just got a book on fungus that I can't wait to get into.

Banjonique here (call me Mark).......attended a 4 day seminar in August with The Soil Doctor, Doug Weatherbee, and he talked all about the often overlooked qualities and properties of fungi in the soil and told us to use sawdust and shavings in our compost piles to promote fungal growth of microbes.......my piles have sawdust and shavings and I think Claire may be right: fungal activity in these piles may be the trigger for the fast and total breakdown of the raw materials......I did not plant with saved seeds, but with seed from Wm. Dam Seeds in Ontario, excellent source for untreated seeds.......Doug said vegetables generally prefer bacterial microbes while grasses and forest plants prefer fungal microbes and that we should build our piles according to their intended use

Mark: Another thought concerning fungi - squash seeds may not need to bring mycorrhyizal fungi with them if they can mobilize the fungi already present in your piles.

Maybe the germinating seeds produce chemicals that attract fungi and act as a growth hormone for them. In that case the squash seed would stimulate the fungal growth and the fungi would in turn break down the compost and thus provide food for the squash. Sort of a feedback loop - squash stimulates fungus, fungus feeds squash.

This may sound a little outlandish, but apparently this sort of thing often happens in the plant world. I recently read a book, Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web By Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis that was a revelation to me. Who knew what was going on in the soil world (besides The Shadow, of course)?

Claire

Many years ago I read somewhere that cucurbits (like squash and melons) do well atop compost or simply leaf piles. Their roots were said to tolerate the conditions and the compost or especially leaves help keep the bottom of the fruit from soil contact and rotting. I tried it back then on a partially decomposed leaf pile and remember it as going well, that is, growing well.

I can believe it. This summer I made a lasagne bed with some bad clay layered with fresh grass clippings/leaves mix plus ash/charcoal from an outdoor fire pit. I was planning to plant perennials in it in the fall, but the wife snuck out there and put in zucchini seeds in the spring. The zucchini grew massive. We didn't get much fruit (possible the ash tied up phosphate temporarily?) and the deer ate the plants eventually, but I was impressed with the growth.

I'm not quite following all of the fungi theories because I don't know a lot about that. Instead, I have a question.

If you plant something in the new pile (un-composted), and it grows wonderfully, isn't it using the nutrients to grow? What I mean is, will the compost have anything to offer other than being a soil amendment after something has been grown in it? Won't the plant you grow in the pile "suck" up the nutrients so that the plant itself can grow?

Val

That's a good question, Val. I think it's a question of degree, that is, how many squash plants and how big the compost pile.

The squash will certainly end up using some of the nutrients, courtesy of the fungi and bacteria which process the compost components. But if the pile is big enough, then there should be plenty of nutrients left over, and the compost will be ready to use much earlier than it would have been if left squash-less.

Assuming Mark would have grown squash somewhere anyway, then he's saved himself a few steps and some time by not having to carry finished compost over to another bed and incorporating it before planting the squash. He's also got finished compost he can use somewhere else.

I suppose Mark could do a test by planting different numbers of squash seeds in a standard sized pile and seeing how much, if any, compost survives. Of course then he'd have an awful lot of squash to get rid of.

Claire

I will try Claire's experiment next June and she is also right about having ridiculous amounts of delicious squash to deal with..........I had 3 pickup truck loads of buttercups to get rid of this year.........I do wonder how long a compost pile remains fertile and have some rows that are still highly productive after 5 years of intensive growing typically squash, followed by garlic then kale........I was talking to an Ag school soil scientist last week about my horse manure compost perhaps lacking trace elements (boron and the like)and he said not to worry about planting in straight compost that there would not be a problem