Chicken manure pellets

Hello everyone. Just wondering if anyone as grown root vegetables in a bed that as had chicken manure pellets put on. Thanks 😕

Title typo edited for future search purposes.

Agree with Mum - on sandy soil like mine, no fertiliser = poor crops.

Parsnips and carrots take a long time to germinate (and need to be kept moist at all times) so the pellets should have broken down and been incorporated well before the roots get there.

Spuds are not at risk of forking, so you can add pellets when planting, and also if necessary while they are growing (a sprinkling before earthing up is a convenient way of doing that.)

Agree with Mum - on sandy soil like mine, no fertiliser = poor crops.

Parsnips and carrots take a long time to germinate (and need to be kept moist at all times) so the pellets should have broken down and been incorporated well before the roots get there.

Spuds are not at risk of forking, so you can add pellets when planting, and also if necessary while they are growing (a sprinkling before earthing up is a convenient way of doing that.)

That's great news thanks everyone 😕

.

Hi

I can never understand why anyone would buy or use Chicken pellets as they are the lowest in nutrients of all the fertilizers I know off!

Also, they were the same price as both  FBB and Growmore in the GC yesterday!

Their NPK is about,
4.5-3.5-2.5 or 4-3-2.5 in another brand
Growmore is
7-7-7
FBB is
5-5-6
Special potato is
15-21-24.5

No doubt someone will disagree and say they get wonderful crops using it but not for me!

I may be wrong, but I've always believed that they add a little bit of natural organic matter to the soil - whereas the other fertilisers just feel like you're adding dust IYKWIM?

NPK analysis isn't the whole story - most of the nitrogen in dried chicken manure is in the form of organic compounds and is therefore slow release (more than a year before all of it is made available by the action of soil organisms.)
In practice, this means it should be regarded as more of a balanced fertiliser than the figures suggest.

Price-wise, it's currently being sold in Wilco for £5 for 7 kg, which I would think is cheap compared to most high street/GC prices for Growmore.
Against that is its lower overall NPK content, in favour (for some) is that it's a natural, sustainable product.

As for what works best for which crops, most of us can only try to guess what nutrients our soil may or may not be lacking and therefore whether a specialist fertiliser is or isn't required.

Each to their own - I mainly use dried chicken manure and some Growmore, and also a liquid feed if I think a quick fix is needed for leafy crops (most general purpose liquid feeds are high in nitrogen.)