[Kristen]

I was brought up with "Don't manure and lime at the same time" for the reason that Lime will react with Nitrogen [in the manure] to produce Ammonia (gas) so the Nitrogen will be lost ... but nowadays I don't think of Manure being a Nitrogen-rich fertiliser, but rather a soil conditioner; and if I apply Manure in the Autumn then I expect that some/much of the Nitrogen in it will have been leached by the Spring anyway - not to mention that my manure heap has been sat there all Summer, since the animals were indoors the previous winter making the manure , so some Nitrogen will have already been leached away.

Perhaps the issue is that some of the Lime is wasted by being reacted with the Nitrogen, so less beneficial effect.  My skool-boy chemistry memory is that Ammonium is alkaline, so also raising the pH as does lime  (assuming Ammonium, rather than Ammonia, is created)

Google mostly turned up "The books say don't Lime and Manure together" and thus I didn't find a specific reason, but I wonder if the advice is still as valid as it used to be?  For example, with the prevalence of No Dig perhaps Lime could be incorporated and then Manure added as a Winter Mulch without adverse effects? whereas in olden times both would have been dug in / incorporated I suppose, and thus would have been in contact and reacted together.

But I'm probably missing something obvious?

[mumofstig]

Does this thread help?
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=100312.msg1113710#msg1113710

[beesrus]

Who knows the exact science, but I see the lime/manure issue as very similar to the salt/yeast thing when we bake bread. It's a chemical thing and the two shouldn't snuggle up together over a period, and should be kept separate until the mix is up and running. After that it probably doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

I personally lime brassica beds in the Spring just before planting. Pointless to do it in the Autumn, and never do it in any case on a bed that has been manured in the last 6 months, purely because of the science come folklore I've had fed to me... I'm a good little student. But I bet the world wouldn't collapse if I did, though.
Fortunately if any mistakes were to be made, nitrogen is one of the easiest things to replace cheaply, quickly and organically.
This late Summer just gone, a neighbouring grumpy farmer planted 3 fields of animal finishing kale ... he did a muck spreading run, turned it and followed by a liming 3 days later. His kale is as tall as you like now, so what does that say ? But he's not organic so he might be employing all manner of extra chicanery.

[Goosegirl]

Another reason about the chemical reaction if you manure and lime at the same time, is that somewhere in the back of my brain, I believe old wattle and daub (or clam-staff and daub) homes had this mix with straw pushed into the structure because it hardened so they could make a fairly waterproof structure along with a lime-wash on the outside because it didn't disintegrate at the first drop of rain.