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Composting as a substitute for synthetic chemicals

A homeowner has many options when it comes to providing a healthy environment for plants. While numerous types of fertilizers can be an effective way to quickly amend soil to grow healthy plants, they contain synthetic chemicals. Compost, on the other hand, is an organic alternative to fertilizers, and a homeowner has easy access to compost. There are pros and cons to both methods of providing plants with nutrition.

Compost application via soil top dressing

Benefits of Compost

Compost, sometimes called “black gold,” consists of decomposed organic matter that enhances the soil with nutrients and microbes. Typically it includes recycled material including decayed vegetables, fruit, grass clippings and plant foliage. Compost also has microscopic fungi, mycorrhizae, bacteria, protozoa and nematodes; together with earthworms and arthropods. This mixture creates a symbiotic food web within the soil. The decomposing material feeds the organisms and helps to aerate the soil while also keeping it moist. Compost also helps plants fight disease, helps to prevent erosion, controls weeds and can be mixed with store-bought potting soil. Tightly packed soil, such as clay, becomes easier to work with when you add compost. If you create your own compost, you also decrease the volume of trash that goes into landfills.
Disadvantages of Compost

The drawbacks of compost are few. If you make your own compost, it is important to make sure that any plant remnants you add to the mix do not have soil-borne pathogens that might infest healthy plants. Destroy diseased or damaged plant parts instead of adding them to a compost pile. Patience is very important when making your own compost. It takes time for the decayed matter to break down and you might have to wait a few months until you see significant results from your composting efforts.
Benefits of Fertilizer

Fertilizer applications target the needs of plants to help them grow faster. If a plant is lacking micro- and macronutrients, such as calcium, magnesium, potassium or phosphorus, adding fertilizer provides a quick and easy solution to alleviate deficiencies. You can purchase fertilizer for specific types of plants. If your plant needs immediate nutrition, fast-release fertilizers provide instant nutrition. On the other hand, slow-release fertilizers, like pellets, provide nutrition over an extended period.
Disadvantages of Fertilizer

The biggest difference between fertilizer and compost is that while compost enhances the soil to create a beneficial environment for plants, fertilizer feeds plants. Fertilizers may overload the soil with nutrients. Chemicals in fertilizer can upset the symbiotic relationship of microbes in soil while compost is a naturally balanced mixed of microorganisms that provide a healthy medium for plant growth. The chemicals in fertilizer can also harm the environment if they are overused and seep into underground water reserves or runoff into nearby bodies of water. The excess nitrogen from fertilizers can spur algae growth that depletes the oxygen supply for fish. From an economic standpoint, compost, especially if you make your own, is less expensive than fertilizer. Poor plant health is often due to poor soil conditions. Improving the soil with compost instead of using fertilizer is a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way of maintaining healthy plants.

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Compost benefits to the soil ecology, plant roots and overall plant health

  • Compost contains fungi and bacteria that help prevent diseases. The microorganisms in the compost are competitors of the pathogens such as Pythium and Rhizoctonia.
  • Compost is a 100% organic fertilizer containing primary nutrients as well as trace minerals, humus and humic acids, in a proportion that almost exactly matches plant requirements, and in a slow release form that is available to plants even during the fertilizer blackout periods.
  • Compost encourages the development of healthy populations of earthworms, beneficial insects, protozoans, arthropods, nematodes and microorganisms.
  • Increases moisture-holding capacity of soils. A 5% increase in organic matter, in the form of compost, significantly increases the soils ability to hold and store water. Compost will retain ten times its weight in water yet excess water drains off easily.
  • Compost helps clay soil become more friable and allows air to reach plant roots better thus improving plant growth. This is important in new subdivisions where retention pond excavation material is used to define the building pad of the new home.
  • Compost is a great buffer. Compost protects soils against extremes in acidity or alkalinity (high or low pH)
  • Contains growth-promoting hormones. Experiments on wheat, barley, potatoes, grapes, tomatoes, beets, etc. show that even when in very low concentrations (0.01%), humic acids in compost act to stimulate plant growth.
  • Compost contains fungi that destroys harmful nematodes
  • Compost helps unlock minerals present in existing soil
  • Compost helps increase air spaces, drainage and aeration of soils and resists compaction
  • Compost acts as a buffer against chemicals and absorption of dangerous heavy metals by plants
  • Compost helps maintain the soil cation exchange capacity
  • Compost releases nutrients over a long period of time (up to 5 years)
  • Encourages plants to develop large healthy root zones (wider and deeper) that help plants tolerate drought conditions
  • Compost is better than pine bark and peat moss- because it is alive, contains mineral nutrients (including trace minerals) and loaded with beneficial microorganisms. Pine bark and peat moss are lifeless and have little nutrient value!
  • Compost is an excellent slow release fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, trace minerals, humic acids, and other needed nutrients. Compost in the soil releases its nutrients exactly when plants need them most…when they are actively growing. Note: This slow release prevents loss of nutrients to runoff and it does not pollute our waterways as compared to synthetic chemical fertilizers.
  • Compost is used as a treatment for many plant diseases such as “Brown Patch”.
  • Compost increases the available nitrogen for plants far in excess of its own contents. Compost contains about 2-4% nitrogen. However, compost stimulates the growth of microorganisms (they use compost as a food source) and these microorganisms absorb nitrogen from the air to grow. When they die (some microorganisms have lifetimes of less than 1 hour) the nitrogen is then released to the soil for plants to use. Thus some compost’s can have effective nitrogen content of 12-18% in the best form for plants to use!
  • Research at Cornell University has indicated that well aged or mature composts successfully suppress a number of turf grass diseases.
  • Topdressing of compost and bio-natural soil blends to the turf provides substrates on which disease suppressive soil microorganisms can grow. At the same time this introduces populations of microorganisms that may reduce disease severity by interfering with the activities of pathogenic fungi. Topdressing also reduces thatch buildup
  • Augustine grass is much more prone to disease and insect infestation. Top dressing with compost reduces disease and insect infestation.
  • Humus in compost is important to plant health. They include:
    • provides a storehouse of essential plant nutrients: it stores over 95% of the nitrogen, 60% of the phosphorous, and 98% of the sulfur available to plants!
    • helps make nutrients more soluble and available to plants
    • contains substances that stimulate plant growth, improve crop quality, and increase a plants resistance to pests and disease.
  • Research has found that the contents of plant cells (the sap) have the ability to suppress the growth of bacteria and fungi. …organic substances produced by soil microorganisms, when absorbed through the plant’s roots, increase the natural immunity of plants to infections.
  • Compost encourages the growth of many types of bacteria that have the ability to help detoxify many types of pesticides, simply by using them as food. High humus levels are the most important property facilitating pesticide degradation.
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Top dressing with compost is a more sustainable and affordable alternative

Top dressing with compost is meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Top dressing with compost is a responsible process that will not deplete our resources or harm natural cycles.

What is compost? It is the end result of controlled aerobic decomposition of organic matter.

Compost comes from municipal solid waste as in household refuse; leaves, twigs and grass clippings as in yard waste; sewage sludge also known as biosolids; animal manure and food residuals.

Composting is a biological process, where organic wastes are stabilized and converted into a product to be used as a soil conditioner and organic fertilizer.
Composting process takes soil micro and macro organisms together with organic residues, and by adding oxygen and water we get water, carbon dioxide, heat and the compost byproduct.

There are significant benefits in the use of compost top dressing:

1. soil structure is improved, the creation and improvement macro and micro aggregates
2. improved aeration and plant root development
3. nutrient availability, especially nitrogen is available in slow release form
4. reduced erosion and improved soil conservation
5. prevention and suppression of diseases
6. organic matter recycling
7. less landfill waste
8. carbon capture and sequestration
9. the reduction in fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides
10. decreased nitrogen leaching to surface water ; ultimately reducing nitrogen and phosphorus to groundwater and receiving bodies of water

Compost suppresses the following diseases in turf grasses:

1. Fusarium Patch
2. Damping-off
3. Brown Patch
4. Large Patch
5. Dollar Spot
6. Different types of molds and leaf spot

In our Florida sandy soils compost top dressing would increase water and nutrient retention, make nutrients available and increase microbial activity.

When top dressing with compost it is very important to ensure that you using the right equipment. Warm season turfgrass species that have a stolen and a rhizome (such as Zoysiagrass, Seashore Paspalum and Bermudagrass) should be verticut at least one time per year. Verticutting in the Spring and Fall is ideal using a verticutter, also called a vertical mower. A verticutter has blades that cut down into the thatch without damaging the healthy grass. This breaks up that dead layer and brings it to the surface so it can easily be collected and removed. Verticutting is a seamless process when performed by professionals. It is not necessary to clean up any dead thatch that has accumulated after verticutting. A thin layer (approximately a 0.25” to 0.125”) is then laid down at least one time per year. The microbes in the compost top dressing will metabolize the dead thatch.

How to select the compost to use in turfgrass top dressing?

choose a compost that has been tested by some university, company or a colleague
a physical and chemical analysis of the compost is essential
The compost color should be a brown to black. It should ever odor like earth and should have a particle size 1/4” to 3/8”.

Organic matter content should be greater than 30% and the carbon/nitrogen ratio should be below or equal to 30:1. Nitrogen content should be 0.5 to 3% and phosphorus should be greater than 0.2%. pH should be 6.0 to 7.0.