Poultry Poop as Fertilizer for Oaks.

[GarGuy]

I may be ignorant to the subject but I never understood why people continue to fertilize large trees around the base when their root system spans out 30 feet or more.

Great point. I'm fertilizing food plots with large oaks on the parameters and a few isolated in the middle. No doubt the roots reach far out under the food plots.

[Sackett]

Harper, a wildlife management professor and UT Extension wildlife specialist, traces oak-fertilizing falsehoods to mass advertising from the 1990s through the 2000s. Harper assumed fertilizer companies had research to back up their claims…….

How many “Scott’s Bonus-S” commercials do y’all see every year with some fake Irishman touting how great it is. Weed and Feed’s are the slow death of many a tree and shrub throughout the Southeastern US.

[Razrbk89]

That's awesome.
What do you use it all on? Just natural oak and other trees or do you grow fruit trees or something else? And so you just spread year old chicken poop that's not mixed with anything but a little dirt maybe? Or do they use sawdust or hay or something under the chickens at the farm that it gets mixed with?

I use some on pasture and hay meadows. It’s just what they scrape out of the house. Nasty. I kind of hate to use it because of the threat of nitrogen run off and potential to spread disease to turkeys, but in my opinion it works a little better than synthetic fertilizers and has been the cheaper option, lately. I don’t have many turkeys around my house anymore, but won’t use it at deer camp where they are abundant.

It’s up to around $40 a ton delivered and spread around here, which is WAY high IMO. I spread 170 tons on my meadows a couple weeks ago. My hay is beautiful and the ROI is good with litter.

As for the oaks, I used to buy into fertilizing them but have quit. We’re all hardwood here so I just hunt where they’re feeding. Your oaks that are out in your pasture, on woodlines, etc are going to produce more mast generally because they have much larger canopies and less competition.