How to judge compost maturity before field use: temperature, smell, salinity and the analysis, not color alone.
A dark color is not maturity. Before a compost goes to the field, a fallen temperature, a smell that has left ammonia, salinity and foreign matter in the analysis are read together. The rate depends on the crop and the soil.
A pile whose temperature has not fallen still leaves the question of weed seed and unwanted organisms open.
Why calcareous soil and high pH are not the same measurement, and how high pH changes iron, zinc and phosphorus availability.
How to read NPK, micronutrients and the guaranteed analysis, and why the percentage is not the field rate.
How urea, ammonium and nitrate behave differently in soil, and why one large dose is not the same as splitting it.
What a leaf analysis shows that a soil analysis does not, and why sampling time and leaf choice change the reading.
Why phosphorus becomes bound in soil and why raising the rate without a soil analysis is not the management.
