Help with cottonseed meal!

[tuk50]

I need some help! I'm trying to use cottonseed meal for the first time this year and my garden needs 3 pounds of nitrogen per 1000 sq ft and the meal is about 6 3 2. How much volume or weight of meal do I use per 1000 sq ft to get 3 pounds of nitrogen equilivant. I purchased a 50 lb sack and it doesn't come with instructions.. LOL...
thanks, any help would be appreciated. This is the first year that I am resolved to not use any chemical fertilizer.8)

[Worth1]

I could tell you and I have used it for years but here is a better way.
You need a lot of meal something like 10 pounds per 100 square feet and you will need to add lime if your soil is acidic.

http://cottonseed.com/publications/beautifulgardens.asp

PS good choice,
Worth

[tuk50]

Thanks Worth, that is the very web site I needed to estimate the amount of fertilizing.
I have another question about organic fertilizer. I have access to the ground charcoal from a pet crematorium, is this stuff any value as a fertilizer? The guy that has it said he puts it on his garden and that it definitely worked for him with greener and larger plants. He lives in another city and I haven't seen his garden, but is a good gardener from what I have seen for the past few years. It comes out of the incinerator as black charcoal chunks and then ground into a granulated type of charcoal. The incinerator is a forced air natural gas furnace that reaches 1600 degrees. He gave me a five gallon bucket of it and has plenty more if I decide to use it. 8)

[Worth1]

I haven’t used charcoal yet but plan to this year.
I will use it in a 50/50 mix with the existing soil with the same plants in an area without it
But the same soil and fertilizer to see what happens.

The charcoal I will be using is from what I have made from brush fires over the winter.
I don’t have a lot but we will see.

I would give it a try; a friend told me that he knew a guy that used the used up charcoal from a large water treatment plant with very good results.

Worth

[tuk50]

Sounds like a good idea! I will mix the 5 gal bucket in a 20ft row of tomatoes and not in the two rows on either side, this should show obvious changes in my garden. 8)

[velikipop]

I'll be making my own fertilizer this year and plan to follow this formula from Steve Solomon's book on growing vegetables west of the cascades.

4 parts seed meal ( cottonseed or canola)
1/2 part lime (equal part of agricultural and dolomite)
Lime is very important in areas with lots of rain, might be different in Arizona.
1/2 part phosphate rock or bone meal
1/2 part kelp meal (any kind or seaweed meal)

I'll probably add a bit of alfalfa meal as well early on in the season.

Alex

[tuk50]

velikipop that is a good guideline, thanks, I think I will use something very similar. I haven't got the exact proportions yet, but
Cottonseed meal
bonemeal
kelp
cornmeal
gypsum (yes my sandyloam is alkaline)
and a 50 lb bag of 60% alfalfa/ 40% rolled oats.
Starting off this week with a 2 inch layer of composted horse manure.8)

[dice]

Flax seed meal is another option for the seed meal
part of it. (I got a 50-lb bag of it for $14US last spring,
about half of what soybean meal was going for.)

[tuk50]

dice, any idea what ratio flax has in it! I got the cottonseed meal for about the same price here in Tucson and it is about 6-3-2 give or take a few tenths.
Does anyone have a web site that shows grain values like corn, oats, flax, etc....
8)

[dice]

Flax seed meal: 6-3-2

(According to
http://www.agriorganics.com/products...vest_farm.html
)

I expect it to be about the same as Canola meal for
a fertilizer. (Cottonseed meal has the same N-P-K values
but if I recall correctly has a lower pH as it breaks down.
Probably does not matter much unless your soil is already
borderline too acid for good vegetable growth.)

[tuk50]

That web site helps and gives me some idea as what to use and keep a balance of nutrients for my plants. There are a few issues that still has me confused about timing, I'm going to be using cottonseed meal for nitrogen, bonemeal for phosphorus, and probably get enough potassium from the meal and manure compost. I am going to put about 10 lbs of cm and 2 lbs of bm every month starting this week with tilling to 8 inches deep along with 20 lbs of cornmeal and 20 lbs of 60% alfalfa 40% rolled oats now. Each month I will add 10lbs cm and 2lbs bm as side dressing and hoe in so that I can plant the tomatoes in mid March. Then I am going to use a tea made in a 55gal barrel of 1lb of dried kelp, 1 pint of blackstrap molasses a few lbs of the alfalfa feed and a few shovels full of my garden compost all mixed in the water for a week before using it as my transplant solution. In the past I use sulfur pellets, but this year I am going to use gypsum, about a cup full in each transplant hole about shovel size. No doubt I will know more about plans this time next year... Lol.. criticism and suggestions most appreciated. Sandy loam to sand soil second year from an old cactus patch (literally) can't put a shovel in it when dry, so a large helping of composted horse manure and heavy mulch of Christmas trees last summer and again this summer. 8)

[dice]

Bone meal takes 90 days to break down, so you definitely
need to get that in asap if that is your main phosphorus
source. I've read "medium breakdown time" for seed meals
like cottonseed, flax, soy, etc, so you could probably add
those a month later and be in good shape.

You aren't in a high rainfall area, so you probably want to
water after mixing in the bonemeal and again after mixing
in seed meals or alfalfa to give the bacteria and fungi that
make the nutrients available to plants a jumpstart.

[tuk50]

I put my first bonemeal and cottonseed meal down the last week in dec and just put the second batch down yesterday, from now on I will mix 2cu ft of composted manure with 4lb box of bonemeal and spread out on top each month. Hopefully this will keep nutrients available through the growing season this summer. I will use the kelp and manure teas starting a couple weeks before transplant time this spring and for transplants to reduce the shock. My tomato patch is about 1000 sq ft with about 50 plants and last year the only chemical fertilizer I used was the timed release pellets 10 10 10 at planting time and had a great harvest, so my biggest concern is having high enough phosporphus levels at blooming time so I am using much more bonemeal this year, also last year I used manure and fish emulsion for nitrogen so using cottonseed meal is making me a bit nervous also.8)

[dice]

I used flaxseed meal and alfalfa meal last year, plus
superphosphate and sul-po-mag before planting. It
was mostly enough, in beds that had been amended
with horse manure. I gave each plant a tablespoon
of kelp when first flowers appeared, and I watered them
a couple of times each with a tea brewed from a
cup each of kelp powder, comfrey leaf, alfalfa meal,
and dried, chopped up nettles in 5 gallons of water. I used
that tea as a booster a couple of times on a few plants
that were showing signs of some mineral deficiency
in the leaves, too.

Worked great. (I used a mix of fish emulsion and blossom
booster at transplant time, to get them off to a good
start.)

I mixed in lime early in the season (our native soil is on the acid
side, great for rhodies, azaleas, and evergreens, not so great
for vegetables like tomatoes). Only two plants showed
any BER, and some Soil Sweet, comfrey leaf, and wood
ash watered in by the more-than-enough rain fixed that.

[tuk50]

I rarely get BER, probably due to the total lack of rain, and I use massive amounts of mulch to keep the soil even temp and moisture. I don't know why, but my tomatoes usually do better on 2ft wide mounded rows rather than planted in trenches. I've alternated for a few years and the mound years have always made healthier plants so that is the only way I do it now and just add manure, bonemeal, etc into the trenches on either side of the rows so I don't have to disturbe the mulch.8)