Composting Goat poop for growing portobello

[River Farm]

I am going to be growing portobello mushrooms and they need a composted manure substrate and on of the main thing is the ammonia needs to be converted into a nitrate. Is there a way to do this cheaply?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Wish I had an answer to your question - but I have no idea! But, goat poop is pretty great when it comes to growing most everything.

Welcome to the forum from Texas!

 

[flowerbug]

first you'd need to know roughly the nitrogen content of the goat poop and then find the amount of balancing brown material to balance it with. then layer it and put a little water on it to make sure it is properly damp and then let it cook. you do want to pile enough material together so that it can reach the suitable thermal mass and hold up to cooler weather for as long as the pile needs to go to finish.

in a normal compost pile i would add some dirt to increase the diversity of microbes but with creating compost for mushroom growing you probably don't want diversity.

once it has reached a high enough temperature then you can start turning the outside to the inside of the pile, there is a technique to it, but nothing you can't figure out, i'm sure there are plenty of videos on youtube about how to turn a pile and how often and how to check the temperature.

with a managed pile like this you can have the compost done in three weeks to a month or so.

i'm completely hands off with composting, i just dig trenches in gardens and bury things in layers and then let the worms and the rest of the soil community sort it out, it doesn't cook much at all. i also do fairly low till so i may not disturb the areas i've trenched for years afterwards until i get back to that area in the rotation of the garden burying spots.

good luck!

 

[CrealCritter]

I am going to be growing portobello mushrooms and they need a composted manure substrate and on of the main thing is the ammonia needs to be converted into a nitrate. Is there a way to do this cheaply?

Lime, warmth, water and sunshine is the only way I know. I dabbled a little composting in the 80's never really seen much benefits for the work that went into it. But I know a lot of members here are really into composting due to their poor soils.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

You might need a test kit in order to find out when your ammonia has cycled into nitrate. Should be able to buy a decent kit for less than $40.