Improving The Soil With Sugar Cane Mulch ?

[tim armstrong]

I'm a bit tired of trying to get stuff to grow well on some of our land. Its about 3 rai, of level, fast draining, sandy loam. We have some small ornamental bushes on it, and a concrete pond in the middle. It was a run down banana plantation 2 yrs ago, until we ploughed it up to start again. Now its dry season, nothing much grows quickly, and the soil seems to lose a lot of water. We have a bore that is reasonably reliable. The soil seems to need a huge amount of good mulch. I can get sugar can mulch locally, but I'm concerned about the amount of chemicals in it. Does anyone have any ideas ? thanks, Tim

[chownah]

I assume you are considering bagasse which is what is left after they squeeze the sugar out of the cane. I've never used it but my sense of it is that there aren't really and nutrients in it and all it will really provide to the soil is carbon and I have never heard of a soil deficient in carbon...carbon is easy to get as it comes with all plant matter. JApplying it as a mulch will suppress weeds and help retain moisture.

I suggest growing sunn hemp as a green manure crop. It is easy to plant, does well on poor soils, needs little water, grows quickly, suppresses weeds, is usually not bothered too much by insects, fixes alot of nitrogen, plows in easily, inhibits nematodes, and attracts bees. Green manuring is one of the best (if not THE best) way to improve soils in large fields.

OOOOOPSS!! I just reread your post and it sounds like the area is landscaped so you might not want to do the green manure thing as it would be more difficult and would not add too much to the aesthetics of the landscaping. If you can get rice straw to use for mulch it will be way better at improving the soil than the bagasse. If you really want to do a serious job of improving the soil then I recommend growing some legume crop (like sunn hemp) on another plot and instead of plowing it in ala green manuring instead you cut it and use it as mulch....this works really really well as it is pound for pound as good as cow manure...you could use the bagasse as a cover for the sunn hemp as the sunn hemp would provide the nitrogen needed to decompose the bagasse.....lot of work but should provide great results.

Chownah

Edited December 17, 2007 by chownah

[tim armstrong]

I assume you are considering bagasse which is what is left after they squeeze the sugar out of the cane. I've never used it but my sense of it is that there aren't really and nutrients in it and all it will really provide to the soil is carbon and I have never heard of a soil deficient in carbon...carbon is easy to get as it comes with all plant matter. JApplying it as a mulch will suppress weeds and help retain moisture.

I suggest growing sunn hemp as a green manure crop. It is easy to plant, does well on poor soils, needs little water, grows quickly, suppresses weeds, is usually not bothered too much by insects, fixes alot of nitrogen, plows in easily, inhibits nematodes, and attracts bees. Green manuring is one of the best (if not THE best) way to improve soils in large fields.

OOOOOPSS!! I just reread your post and it sounds like the area is landscaped so you might not want to do the green manure thing as it would be more difficult and would not add too much to the aesthetics of the landscaping. If you can get rice straw to use for mulch it will be way better at improving the soil than the bagasse. If you really want to do a serious job of improving the soil then I recommend growing some legume crop (like sunn hemp) on another plot and instead of plowing it in ala green manuring instead you cut it and use it as mulch....this works really really well as it is pound for pound as good as cow manure...you could use the bagasse as a cover for the sunn hemp as the sunn hemp would provide the nitrogen needed to decompose the bagasse.....lot of work but should provide great results.

Chownah

Thanks Chownah, thats very helpful. The area isn't landscaped yet although thats the general direction we're heading in. I'll try the green manure approach as you suggest. Is sunn hemp easy to find and where is the most likely place ? thanks again. Tim

[chownah]

Tim armstrong,

Sunn hemp is not commonly grown. None of the local people around here know what it is when they see it growing and they have even not heard of the Thai name (Paw Tuang)....but a university educated farmer who was a representative of a seed company was checking out my neighbor's land one day and we struck up a conversation...I asked him if he knew what I was growing and sure enough he knew its name and also what conditions it liked. I guess this means that you should probably check at the agriculture university closest to you. I got my seeds (five kilo) for free through a gov't program to promote their use. I don't know if they are still doing that....Evidently I was the only person around here who expressed interest in them. You could do the green manuring with any legume crop but it seems that sunn hemp has a really great combination of characteristics and is probably one of the best although I don't have alot of hands on experience with growing green manure crops.

Chownah

[Kapin]

Tim armstrong,

Sunn hemp is not commonly grown. None of the local people around here know what it is when they see it growing and they have even not heard of the Thai name (Paw Tuang)....but a university educated farmer who was a representative of a seed company was checking out my neighbor's land one day and we struck up a conversation...I asked him if he knew what I was growing and sure enough he knew its name and also what conditions it liked. I guess this means that you should probably check at the agriculture university closest to you. I got my seeds (five kilo) for free through a gov't program to promote their use. I don't know if they are still doing that....Evidently I was the only person around here who expressed interest in them. You could do the green manuring with any legume crop but it seems that sunn hemp has a really great combination of characteristics and is probably one of the best although I don't have alot of hands on experience with growing green manure crops.

Chownah

Chownah, please tell us more of your experiences growing Sunn Hemp.

If planting for a green manure, when would you plant and how much seed to use (Kg per Rai)?

Did you get your seed from Maejo?

At what point do you plough it back in? Before it flowers I presume?

Any additional information will be welcome

Thanks in advance

Kapin

[chownah]

I got my sunn hemp seeds from a local guy who helps out at the local level for gov't programs in our area.

Planting sunn hemp FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING SEED I plant by hand in rows...it is recommended to plant 1/2inch deep at 3 or 4 seeds per foot (7 to 10 cm between seeds about) with rows 3 or 3.5 feet apart (60 to 75 cm apart). With hand seeding I always get too many seeds in so I thin them later.....I should probably try mixing the seeds with sand and some day I'll get around to doing that I guess.....also I plant with row spacing alternating abut 60 cm and 40 cm.....I can walk down the 60 cm row. I keep trying different spacings...a wide variety of spacings will work and what is best probably depends on how fertile your soil is. One thing I have learned is that when harvesting seed by hand it is less work to have fewer plants with more pods per plant so maybe next year I'll plant some with one foot spacing and give them a bit of chicken manure to provide phosphorous which will hopefully stimulate bloom and seed set.

Sunn hemp is a legume and requires a bacteria to be present in the soil for it to fix nitrogen. Not all soils have this bacteria....you can buy it and its cheap but you'll have to hunt for it...go to an ag. uni. I guess.....I discovered that a small amount of dried cow manure when put in the row with the seeds does the trick. I did an experiment with rows side by side in a field which had low fertility and I suspected that the field did not have the bacteria and sure enough, a very small amount of dried cow manure (one small bucket for a 30 metre row is all it took) gave noticeable improvement in plant size and seed yield....also I checked the roots for nodulation (a sign that the bacteria is established and is working) when the plants were young and the rows with the manure had nodulation while the rows without did not or barely had any at all. Once you grow a crop with the bacteria present you shouldn't have to add any in the future as it will persist in the soil for a number of years I guess from what I have read....this means once you get a crop with good nodulation you shouldn't have to worry about the bacteria if you grow it evey year or two...also....there are different varieties of bacteria that do this work so if you buy some be sure that you get the right variety. (NOTE: one small bucket per 30 metre row is an exceedingly small amount of manure and my opinion is that the manure's nutrients alone would not have produced the difference between rows and certainly the difference in nodulation between rows indicated to me that the manure was providing the bacteria needed for nodulation.)

When growing sunn hemp for green manure I plow and disc a good seed bed and then broadcast by hand at the rate of 8 kilograms per rai...then disc shallowly to bury the seed and then water. I'm not very experienced with field crops and I think I can improve on my germination rate by developing my tilling skills....practice makes better....luckily the seed will germinate even if a bit too deep or too shallow so even with my clumsy attempts I usually get a reasonable stand. I've got some coming up right now and I'm anxious to see how it went...I think its a bit too deep but we'll see. I think the next plot I plant (probably ina couple of weeks maybe just after new years) I'll try harrowing to cover the seed instead of shallow disking.

When to plant....for green manure you can plant anytime. For seed I've found the best time to plant is oct and nov. Sept works ok but sometimes its too wet....dec works too but I've just not gotten as good results as oct and nov....maybe it's something I'm doing different in Dec.....don't know. The reason you have to plant in these months is that short days stimulates blooming and seed development. I've planted in Jan and gotten seeds but not so many...again it might be possible to plant in Jan but I just haven't had much luck....I always get good results when planting in oct and nov though.

For green manure.....if your soil holds water well you can probably soak the soil at planting and that's all the water you'll need...in really sandy soils you might want to water once but I don't know. You plow it in when it starts to bloom.....or sooner if you need to hurry to get then next crop started...if you plan on plowing in sooner then increase the seed rate (they say). It takes about 1.5 to 2 months for bloom to happen depending on time of year...you can delay plowing until full bloom if you want by checking the stems to be sure they aren't getting tough and woody which will make plowing in difficult...as long as you plow in when blooming starts or is about 50% bloom then you shouldn't have to worry about tough stems and it will plow in very easily in my experience.....I sometimes delay plowing because it takes longer for the plants to break down when the stems are tougher and this means that the nutrients will be release over a longer period of time...but this does make it harder to plow them in.

Chownah

Edited December 22, 2007 by chownah

[Foreverford]

I got my sunn hemp seeds from a local guy who helps out at the local level for gov't programs in our area.

Planting sunn hemp FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING SEED I plant by hand in rows...it is recommended to plant 1/2inch deep at 3 or 4 seeds per foot (7 to 10 cm between seeds about) with rows 3 or 3.5 feet apart (60 to 75 cm apart). With hand seeding I always get too many seeds in so I thin them later.....I should probably try mixing the seeds with sand and some day I'll get around to doing that I guess.....also I plant with row spacing alternating abut 60 cm and 40 cm.....I can walk down the 60 cm row. I keep trying different spacings...a wide variety of spacings will work and what is best probably depends on how fertile your soil is. One thing I have learned is that when harvesting seed by hand it is less work to have fewer plants with more pods per plant so maybe next year I'll plant some with one foot spacing and give them a bit of chicken manure to provide phosphorous which will hopefully stimulate bloom and seed set.

Sunn hemp is a legume and requires a bacteria to be present in the soil for it to fix nitrogen. Not all soils have this bacteria....you can buy it and its cheap but you'll have to hunt for it...go to an ag. uni. I guess.....I discovered that a small amount of dried cow manure when put in the row with the seeds does the trick. I did an experiment with rows side by side in a field which had low fertility and I suspected that the field did not have the bacteria and sure enough, a very small amount of dried cow manure (one small bucket for a 30 metre row is all it took) gave noticeable improvement in plant size and seed yield....also I checked the roots for nodulation (a sign that the bacteria is established and is working) when the plants were young and the rows with the manure had nodulation while the rows without did not or barely had any at all. Once you grow a crop with the bacteria present you shouldn't have to add any in the future as it will persist in the soil for a number of years I guess from what I have read....this means once you get a crop with good nodulation you shouldn't have to worry about the bacteria if you grow it evey year or two...also....there are different varieties of bacteria that do this work so if you buy some be sure that you get the right variety. (NOTE: one small bucket per 30 metre row is an exceedingly small amount of manure and my opinion is that the manure's nutrients alone would not have produced the difference between rows and certainly the difference in nodulation between rows indicated to me that the manure was providing the bacteria needed for nodulation.)

When growing sunn hemp for green manure I plow and disc a good seed bed and then broadcast by hand at the rate of 8 kilograms per rai...then disc shallowly to bury the seed and then water. I'm not very experienced with field crops and I think I can improve on my germination rate by developing my tilling skills....practice makes better....luckily the seed will germinate even if a bit too deep or too shallow so even with my clumsy attempts I usually get a reasonable stand. I've got some coming up right now and I'm anxious to see how it went...I think its a bit too deep but we'll see. I think the next plot I plant (probably ina couple of weeks maybe just after new years) I'll try harrowing to cover the seed instead of shallow disking.

When to plant....for green manure you can plant anytime. For seed I've found the best time to plant is oct and nov. Sept works ok but sometimes its too wet....dec works too but I've just not gotten as good results as oct and nov....maybe it's something I'm doing different in Dec.....don't know. The reason you have to plant in these months is that short days stimulates blooming and seed development. I've planted in Jan and gotten seeds but not so many...again it might be possible to plant in Jan but I just haven't had much luck....I always get good results when planting in oct and nov though.

For green manure.....if your soil holds water well you can probably soak the soil at planting and that's all the water you'll need...in really sandy soils you might want to water once but I don't know. You plow it in when it starts to bloom.....or sooner if you need to hurry to get then next crop started...if you plan on plowing in sooner then increase the seed rate (they say). It takes about 1.5 to 2 months for bloom to happen depending on time of year...you can delay plowing until full bloom if you want by checking the stems to be sure they aren't getting tough and woody which will make plowing in difficult...as long as you plow in when blooming starts or is about 50% bloom then you shouldn't have to worry about tough stems and it will plow in very easily in my experience.....I sometimes delay plowing because it takes longer for the plants to break down when the stems are tougher and this means that the nutrients will be release over a longer period of time...but this does make it harder to plow them in.

Chownah

You are a superstar in regards to this. I started this topic by looking for green manure seeds and you have been helpful with me finally getting a supplier. I will give all the details of where who and how much shortly. But the sales person was really pushing Paw Tueng (pahh-teu ehng), sun hemp and I was originally asking for Sanoh African (sesbania rostrata). I bought both and another type of bean. Well here comes jack-in-the-beanstalk story. I have soaked seed to get pre-emergence doing golf course rebuilding and maintenance and was told to do so with these seeds. Soak in warm water overnight was what my wife told me the owner's mother had told her to do but with a change in plans and the tractor needed on another jop by my brother-in-law it was now or never so i told them we were going to start the soaking now in the morning and they were going in late that afternoon. As expected the bags of the sun hemp were swollen tight (always transfer half into a similar size bag before immersing in warm water) as expected but when i reached my hand into the bag and pulled out a bunch to view imagine my surprise to see that the beautiful things were already putting out first root and a few had actually started splitting the cotolyden (sp?). Soooooo be careful and reduce the time to four hours or so and just wait to start climbing those beautiful things to collect the goose that lays the golden eggs. Thisa might be the greatest thing I have ever witnessed in my goofy life but I think it is a must for anyone who is doing green manuring. I'll post more on my original topic in a day or two. thanks for the help chownah!

[tjeffrutherford]

Hi all,

We've had a bit of experience with sunnhemp, or Crotalaria juncea (bor teuang). Have a look at this pdf.

learning_about_Crotalaria_juncea..pdf

I assume you are considering bagasse which is what is left after they squeeze the sugar out of the cane. I've never used it but my sense of it is that there aren't really and nutrients in it and all it will really provide to the soil is carbon and I have never heard of a soil deficient in carbon...carbon is easy to get as it comes with all plant matter. JApplying it as a mulch will suppress weeds and help retain moisture.

I suggest growing sunn hemp as a green manure crop. It is easy to plant, does well on poor soils, needs little water, grows quickly, suppresses weeds, is usually not bothered too much by insects, fixes alot of nitrogen, plows in easily, inhibits nematodes, and attracts bees. Green manuring is one of the best (if not THE best) way to improve soils in large fields.

OOOOOPSS!! I just reread your post and it sounds like the area is landscaped so you might not want to do the green manure thing as it would be more difficult and would not add too much to the aesthetics of the landscaping. If you can get rice straw to use for mulch it will be way better at improving the soil than the bagasse. If you really want to do a serious job of improving the soil then I recommend growing some legume crop (like sunn hemp) on another plot and instead of plowing it in ala green manuring instead you cut it and use it as mulch....this works really really well as it is pound for pound as good as cow manure...you could use the bagasse as a cover for the sunn hemp as the sunn hemp would provide the nitrogen needed to decompose the bagasse.....lot of work but should provide great results.

Chownah

[zzaa09]

Tim armstrong,

Sunn hemp is not commonly grown. None of the local people around here know what it is when they see it growing and they have even not heard of the Thai name (Paw Tuang)....but a university educated farmer who was a representative of a seed company was checking out my neighbor's land one day and we struck up a conversation...I asked him if he knew what I was growing and sure enough he knew its name and also what conditions it liked. I guess this means that you should probably check at the agriculture university closest to you. I got my seeds (five kilo) for free through a gov't program to promote their use. I don't know if they are still doing that....Evidently I was the only person around here who expressed interest in them. You could do the green manuring with any legume crop but it seems that sunn hemp has a really great combination of characteristics and is probably one of the best although I don't have alot of hands on experience with growing green manure crops.

Chownah

We intersperse Sunn hemp with most everything. Still a rarity around these parts. My Father-in-Law is quite the advocate today.....promoting as he can.