Content
An almost forgotten fertilizer - bone meal is now again used in vegetable gardens as a natural organic product. It is a source of phosphorus and magnesium, but does not contain nitrogen. For this reason, fertilizer can be safely added to the soil without fear of an excess of nitrogen in the soil. Flour contains 15% phosphorus in the phosphate compound calcium... Until recently, bone powder was used to compensate for calcium deficiencies in animals.
Today, the product of bone processing has been used as an organic phosphorus fertilizer. If industrial nitrogen and potassium supplements replace humus and ash, respectively, then superphosphate replaces bone powder.
What is profitable
Organic fertilizers made from bone meal do not harm nature, polluting it with wastes from the chemical industry. You can do it yourself. This is especially true for owners of private farmsteads who keep livestock for themselves. Even dogs cannot gnaw the tubular bones of large animals, and there is nowhere to put such waste. But from the bones you can make fertilizer for the beds in the garden.
Organic fertilizer from bones is also beneficial because it does not contain nitrogen, which leads to fattening of plants. If in the previous year too much nitrogen fertilizer was added and this is not needed, bone meal can be used as "pure" phosphorus.
Phosphorus released from bones helps to build up the root system in seedlings, strengthen immunity in plants and ripen delicious sweet fruits.
What it is
Percentage of live bone composition:
- water 50;
- fat 15.75;
- collagen fibers 12.4;
- inorganic substances 21.85.
When the bones are calcined, all organic matter burns out, leaving only inorganic compounds. Collagen fibers give firmness to fresh bones, which burn out. After calcining, the bone becomes very fragile and crumbles with your fingers.
Of the inorganic substances remaining after calcination, the future fertilizer contains the most:
- calcium phosphate - 60%;
- calcium carbonate - 5.9%;
- magnesium sulfate - 1.4%.
Calcium Phosphate Formula Ca₃ (PO4) ₂. From this substance plants get their "own" 15% of phosphorus.
Application
Breeders are familiar with bone meal, which is added to feed to compensate for calcium deficiencies in dairy cattle and layers. But the use of the product is not limited to this, as bone meal and gardeners are used as fertilizer.
As a fertilizer, the powder is applied to the soil once a year, in spring, during deep digging. Bones smolder and release nutrients slowly, so this type of fertilizer is referred to as "long-playing". Fertilization rate per square meter - 200 g.
You can add flour to the seedling hole. To do this, a little powder is poured onto the bottom of the hole and mixed with the ground. Place seedlings on top and sprinkle everything with soil.
Also, this product is used to deoxidize the soil, since after heat treatment of bones, calcium is the main component of the final product. Instead of ash or lime, a similar amount of bone meal can be added to the soil.
How to do it yourself
Bone meal is one of the few fertilizers that you can easily make yourself. The way to make bone meal at home is quite simple: bones are calcined in a fire. When making bone fertilizer, the main task is to burn off all organic matter from the bone.Industrial technology implies a certain temperature regime and hermetically sealed containers. As a result, industrially produced bone meal is almost white in color.
Home-made powder will always be inferior in quality, and the color will depend on the method of manufacture and the accuracy of the manufacturer. There are two ways to make bone meal at home: put it in a metal container and put it in the oven to be calcined; just throw the bones into the oven along with the wood.
In the first method, the container must be covered with a lid to avoid heat loss and put it in the hottest place. In the second case, remove the bones from the oven after a while. The calcination time depends on the size of the bones and the temperature at which they are calcined. The heating time will have to be selected experimentally. Calcination often takes 12 hours of continuous heating. During this time, all organic components will burn out in the bones, giving elasticity to fresh bones. At the exit, the raw material for fertilizer from the container will turn out to be "white" in color, if you are lucky, and the one harvested directly on the wood will differ little in color from the ash.
After calcining the bones, the flour blanks should crumble
At home, it is most convenient to make flour from bird bones. They are smaller, thinner, and organic matter burns out faster. After calcining the bones, it is enough to crush, and the fertilizer is ready.
Are bone and meat-and-bone the same thing?
On websites you can often see that the adjectives "bone" and "meat and bone" are used synonymously. In fact, these are fundamentally different products.
The raw material from which bone meal is made is bare bones. Even if traces of muscle tissue remained on them before being placed in the oven, all this burns out during the calcination process. At the exit, as in the video above, fragile brittle bones remain, without the slightest sign of meat.
Raw materials for meat and bone meal - carcasses of dead animals and waste from the slaughterhouse. They are present in raw materials and bones, but the bulk of them are skin and muscle tissue.
A high-quality bone smell is practically absent. If there is a smell, it means that the packaging was damaged, the contents got wet, and the bone powder began to decompose.
Meat and bone meal as a fertilizer is not used if there is no desire to breed insects that feed on carrion in the beds. The main obstacles to the use of meat and bone meal in the garden are its chemical composition and a completely different manufacturing technology. The composition of meat and bone meal includes up to 60% protein, and the technology of its preparation provides for degreasing and drying in a centrifuge, and not calcining until organic matter is completely removed. Because of this, after adding the meat and bone product to the garden bed, the usual decomposition processes will go there with all the delights in the form of a cadaveric smell and the multiplication of pathogenic bacteria, including tetanus bacillus.
When entering the bloodstream through a wound, these bacteria cause "blood poisoning" (sepsis).
Even in color, meat and bone meal is different from bone meal. The meat and bone are reddish brown, while the bone is gray or gray-white. The color of bone meal often depends on the degree of calcination and manufacturing technology.
Instructions for the use of meat and bone meal provide for the norms for feeding per farm animal, but not for adding the product to the beds. Meat and bone meal is added to feed:
- fattening bulls and producers;
- pigs;
- stallions-producers;
- chickens to eliminate protein starvation.
But plants do not feed this.If the instructions for meat and bone meal indicate that it can be used as fertilizer for plants, this is either a marketing ploy or not meat and bone meal.
The video briefly shows the technology for the production of meat and bone meal.
Reviews of bone meal as a fertilizer from experienced gardeners are positive. Fortunately, flower shops do not sell meat and bone meal, otherwise everything would be different. It is possible to use meat and bone and fish meal as fertilizers, but it is more profitable to use them as animal feed. And even when using protein products as fertilizers, it is better to do it on large areas that are processed by machines.
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Conclusion
The newly introduced bone meal can replace superphosphate produced by the chemical industry. Its plus is that in small quantities this substance is not difficult to make on your own at home. When breeding indoor flowers, this fertilizer can be produced with your own hands using a conventional gas oven.
