We've kicked around uses for wood chips often enough in the past. Wood chips are excellent for low or no turn composting because they aerate so well. They are known in the composting industry as a 'bulking agent'.
If the wood is branch wood of about three inches in diameter or less, it can have a surprisingly high nutritional value. I know people do chip larger material, which is much lower in nutrients and has a higher C:N ratio as well as higher levels of 'extractables', the substances that give heartwood its high rot resistance. Note for Allan---if the pile of chips you are talking about has not been turned during the high activity period, the material in the outer foot or two could be suspect as far as poison ivy breakdown. People who are doing the work will know whether or not they have posion ivy in their wood chips, but if you take a load from 'out there' you may not know, and should assume you do if in PI country. Assuming branch wood, the best is to have no more than about 10-20% conifers if you plan to spread the wood directly as recommended by the people up here in Quebec. For composting the amount of chips to manure is again variable. Chipped alder might be as low as 25 or 35 to 1 C:N in the summertime, whereas chipped heartwood can be as high as 500 to 1. The lignin in branches is much more decomposable and thus available than the lignin in heartwood, so it will be best not to consider most of the large heartwood chips as contributing available carbon to the pile, when you do your C:N calculations. Now, in calculating C:N ratios, the typical C:N of, say, grass clippings, is around 20:1, and the typical C:N ratio of say, fall leaves is around 40 to 1, so one part of each by weight would give you an ideal C:N ratio of 30:1. Working with chips is not as easy, since as noted the big heartwood chips should really be left out of the equation. Working with smaller green branch wood chips, you can basically add them to manure at any convenient rate and be assured of substantial heating. Some amount of trial and error should be expected as you match moisture content, age of the manure and other materials together. The only downside to chips in compost is the possible need to screen the material at the end in order to remove larger chips that didn't break down. Whether you need to do this or not depends on the particular end use for the compost. Frank Teuton---a big fan of chips as mulch, compost and vermicompost ingredients, or as a sheet treatment for soils.... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Balliett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, July 13, 2002 6:04 AM Subject: Re: wood chips > Not apropos to the question in question, this year I had the people > who clear trees for the power company dump mountains of wood chips at > Blue Ridge Center. > > Not having had time to build serious compost stacks with them, I've > been interested in using the chips as mulch in the flower garden, but > I've been afraid of poison ivy that was undoubtedly chopped up with > the trees (it climbs like mad here) and been afraid of itroducing > disease to the garden. > > I got a chance to talk to my neighbor about this. He just happens to > be the commercial mulch king of Northern Virginia. (where, btw, BLUE > mulch (died) has become the most popular) I asked him about using > tree company wood chips. > > Surprisingly, he said that if I piled them and they heated, then > after 6 weeks the poison ivy and most of the diseases were > neutralized, that I should be able to apply them anywhere without > fear of poisoning garden workers and so on. > > My stacks DEFINITELY heated: they smoke as though they have chimneys > every morning (or, at least, they did) I'm going to spread a few tons > in the near future. I'll let you know how it works out. >
