Last night there was nother documentary about the Ecoli outbreak in spinach. It seems they are blaming the contamination on cow manure either directly put on the growing areas or contaminants coming in the irrigation water. Apparently the Ecoli oranism is found in cow manure.

Does this make you a little leery of using cow manure on your gardens?

If you're adding fresh cow manure to the garden, it might be a concern. I believe composting the manure before adding to the garden should be safe.

Here is some of the info I found on the net involving composting and E. Coli.

"Monitor the temperature. Long-handled thermometers are available for this purpose. The temperature must reach 130 to 140 degrees F for at least two five-day heating cycles. Mix the compost between cycles.

After composting, allow the compost to cure for two to four months before applying it to your Garden soil. This allows the beneficial bacteria to kill disease-causing bacteria."

Information received from: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/foodnut/09369.html

It just barely could depend. Local dairy here in New England don't feed the same amounts of other food by-production that some larger western-southern dairies use.

I would (and have) felt comfortable with composting dairy cattle manure for my garden. I'd rather use it fresh on a hay feild--just my nonscientific 2 cents worth.

Many strains of E-Coli are found in manures and we all have many of those strains of E-Coli in us to help digest the food we eat. Something like 8 of the over 1,000 strains of E-Coli are hazardous to us if we ingest them and these all come from animal manure. One report I saw strongly suggested that one of the farms this contaminated spinach came from was an organic farm and the reporter did not mention, or clarify, that this farm was working toward organic certification and had 2 years to go before that would be possible.
Most often, when this kind of thing happens, it is because someone, somewhere has dumped untreated animal manure in a place where it can reach food products. We have several CAFOs in west Michigan and all of them have had a "spill" at least once of the manure they produce and often they have had the manure they spread on the fields run off into the streams in the area. These factories are treaed as farms and are exempt from most pollution laws.

Basicly it comes down to this - if you are going to use manure, it should be old enough to have dried down to a crumbly powder....NEVER NEVER NEVER USE FRESH MANURE ON YOUR FOOD CROPS. Sheet composting on pasture ground and spreading it in your garden are two diff. applications and should not be thought of as being one and the same.

<reaching back to my college notes>

Another interesting tidbit:

Bad-for-human-Ecoli ends up in cattle manure when the animals are fed a high grain diet, such as happens in feedlots and finishing operations to bulk up on weight quickly. Pasture fed cattle don't have the same human-toxic variety of ecoli in their manure.

I'm no scientist, but here's my understanding: During the cattle digestion process of a high-grain diet, some ecoli develop a higher tolerance to an acidic environment (the grains produce more acid during digestion, pasture mix doesn't) It's THESE particular acid tolerant ones, such as the 0157 strain made popular by Walkerton, Ontario, that can then survive the acid levels in the human gut. They then make us sick instead of dying in our stomachs.

Did I explain that right?

I still agree with MooreHaven - don't ever use fresh manure on veggies. (In fact, I think it's prohibited around here) But if you're selecting manure to compost or age, you could feel a bit more comfortable (though not relaxing on the compost pile heat suggestions) using pasture fed cattle manure vs. grain fed.

The National Organic Program (NOP) has strict rules as to how manure must be "hot" composted to kill pathogens, and manure not composted this way must be considered raw. Raw manure, in turn, cannot be applied to a crop within 120 days of harvest if the edible portion has direct soil contact (beets, radishes). It cannot be applied to a crop within 90 days of harvest when the edible portion does not have soil contact (corn, broccoli).

That works for me.

If I manage to find an area farmer with an old pile of manure who is willing to share, how old is considered safe to use in a veggie garden bed? I wouldn't personally have measured the temps as it composted. Yet if it's old enough, does that qualify it as composted? How old is old enough?

quote:

I'm no scientist, but here's my understanding: During the cattle digestion process of a high-grain diet, some ecoli develop a higher tolerance to an acidic environment

I haven't heard that before.

The primary issue with any feedlot steer is the bovine digestive track is not meant to digest large quantities of grain.

In order to get "corn fed" beef, the natural bacteria levels in their gut are suppressed by sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics. If the cows didn't get these low levels of antibiotics with the corn, the corn would ferment into alcohol.

This strain of e-coli that happens to be one of the 8 bad ones Kimm mentions apparantly is pretty good too at resisting the levels of antibiotics given to cattle to eat corn. It's not the antibiotics per se that make it a bad germ, but killing off the competetion = more of the bad guy.

Beef feedlots are the worse; "Family" Dairy farms tend to not use anywhere near the amount of grain -- although that will vary by farm. I'm not really sure where the line is before the antibiotics are needed to add digestion -- they're not for a grass & silage diet, but many dairy farms still supplement those with some grain because it's a pretty cheap source of concentrated energy for them.

I don't worry about all the scientific stuff, I probably would if I market gardened. I just bury it so the rain won't splash it on the plants. E-coli will only transmit by contact -- splashing, edible parts in contact with soil, etc.

As I have said before, and probably will say again, always compost animal manures before using it in your garden, or spreading it on your fields. Simply piling manures up and letting them age is a waste of a valuable resource.

First question: So even if it's aged for 10-15 years, it's still not safe to use in the garden until I've intentionally composted it? It won't have composted on its own? Just making sure I understand. I am trying to fill some raised beds and had hoped that if I got aged manure from a farmer it could be used. If I understand this correctly, then I guess not.

Second question: Once the resource has been "wasted" (by allowing the manure to age) -- and believe me, there's a lot in that condition around here -- what can you do with it? Is there any point at which it becomes safe to use, say, on the lawn?

My mind has slipped some on this but was the bulk of the outbreak from "bagged" spinach? I've always had a hard time eating the vegetables from bags, one they don't taste right and two the bags just keep in all the bacteria. Matter of fact the saying around my house is "bag 'o bacteria". So, possibly could the wide spread issue be due to the fact that the ecoli just sat in those bags and festered?

quote:

In order to get "corn fed" beef, the natural bacteria levels in their gut are suppressed by sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics. If the cows didn't get these low levels of antibiotics with the corn, the corn would ferment into alcohol.

Or more corrctly, into large amounts of methane, which is a greenhouse gas.

And take it from someone who has had both, grass fed beef TASTES BETTER!! The whole corn-fed thing is a propaganda campaign buy the factory farm boys to get more people to buy their beef so they can make more $$$ on less land.

quote:

Originally posted by Liz1:
First question: So even if it's aged for 10-15 years, it's still not safe to use in the garden until I've intentionally composted it? It won't have composted on its own? Just making sure I understand. I am trying to fill some raised beds and had hoped that if I got aged manure from a farmer it could be used. If I understand this correctly, then I guess not.

Second question: Once the resource has been "wasted" (by allowing the manure to age) -- and believe me, there's a lot in that condition around here -- what can you do with it? Is there any point at which it becomes safe to use, say, on the lawn?

Answer 1: As I understand it, e coli does not survive more than a few weeks outside the body. Hence the 120 day requirement for root crops. So, if the stuff has sat as long as you say, it is most likely safe.

Answer 2: If you don't have any kids or pets rolling around on your lawn, it goes back to what MHG said and let it dry down to dust and then apply it.