[erainn]

Well over half of our recently acquired main plot turned over, and now thinking of adding some compost to improve what is fairly clay-type soil. Was wondering how nutrient rich mushroom compost is, say in comparison to bagged general compost, would mixing the two be too much in terms of Ph?

Had give horse manure a thought, but some time ago was told that the practice of feeding horses worming medication transferred into the manure and if used on soils reduced worm levels. Any thoughts/experience on that?

New to allotmenting and our neighbour reckons it's too late to use manure anyways as it would be too 'hot/strong' for growing anything this year.

Really appreciate some help on these points.

[stompy]

I've not heared about the worming soloution comming through, there was a weed killer that was in the news but thats it.
Manure is cheap in comparison to compost, i personally use manure for this reason but would certainly use compost as well if i could get enough at a good price.
If the manure you've been offered is of the well rotted kind (over a year old) then it would be fine to add to the soil, but if it's fresh (still has alot of either straw or wood chippings in it and smells of manure) then it would burn the plants and it needs covering for a year to mature.
If it's a virgin plot and not been used for a good while then it will have anough neutrients in it for the first year and just add plenty of BFB to feed and sharp sand to break up the soil structure, then add the organic material at a later date.

Andy

[aelf]

We looked into this at work because we breed worms for sale using horse muck as their food. It seems that most of the chemicles that are toxic to parasitic worms in the horse are in low doses when administered and will break down as they pass through the horse. Thay also break down as the compost heap heats up. We did some (rather unscientific) experiments with muck from horses that had been wormed to see if compost worms were affected and we could see no effect - it certainly didn't kill them all  . So, we use all muck, treated and untreated, and the worms seem quite happy.

[Dominic]

Are earthworms and parasitic worms related in any way?
Any more closelt than earthworms and, snakes, for example?

Even if the worming medication is deadly to earthworms, I'd be asolutly amazed if the amounts still active in year old horse poo are deadly.

[stompy]

You would have thought that about aminopyralid weed killer.
But it decimated peoples crops after using manure from animals that had grazed on grass land that had been treated with it.

[solway cropper]

Mushroom compost is alkaline and most clay soils are as well so I'd be inclined to check your pH before you put anything on.