farmer uses raw manurer to fertilize veges will I get E coli goat manurer & straw?
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Question by Jo: farmer uses raw manurer to fertilize veges will I get E coli goat manurer & straw?
Local farmer has been using goat manurer from farm down the road is now considering burning all his potatoes plants because of the European scare of E Coli. I think he’s crazy-wash/cook well and all should be well. What do you all think? These animals are healthy.
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4 Responses to farmer uses raw manurer to fertilize veges will I get E coli goat manurer & straw?
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If the manure were contaminated with E. Coli, a lot of plants can actually take the bacteria INSIDE the plant. No amount of washing can remove it, and the light cooking most vegetables go through isn’t nearly enough to kill it. Whether or not potatoes take the bacteria into the plant or not I do not know. Edit: I do know spinach does. Remember the spinach scare a couple years ago? Yeah, that was E. Coli INSIDE the leaves. Cooking didn’t even destroy it. These kinds of things usually happen from using manure from factory farms where the animals are in poor health to begin with.
However, if his animals are healthy, there really isn’t any reason to do that. Although he would probably be doing well to compost the manure before fertilizing the plants with it, rather than just dumping goat poop on his plants. Composting it would destroy a lot of the pathogens that could possibly be in there. But if his animals are well cared for, well fed, and healthy, there’s really very little chance of anything bad getting in the plants.
Moojoo
October 4, 2012 at 4:11 am
I think it would be crazy to destroy them! It’s a potato for gods sake, just wash them and cook as usual. There is no way that the whole E coli scare in europe was from properly cooked and washed vegetables. My grandfather raised a “truck patch”, just a really large garden, for many years and he used manure every single year. I don’t know of anyone ever getting sick from it.
Steve
October 4, 2012 at 5:09 am
manure is likely composted and in any case potatoes grow under ground and if properly washed will not be a problem. All potatoes are subject to some fertilization either naturally as with manure or chemically which is less preferable and also subject to naturally occurring bacteria in the soil and washed out of the air and excrement from bugs and birds.
rogerrabbitanddoe
October 4, 2012 at 5:36 am
Jo, people are so paranoid, what is being used is a natural fertilizer not a chemical one.
I wish people would get out of their cozy arm chairs and take a trip to a commercial farm or three and see what goes on, what is used. There is a major difference in growing potatoes and growing mushrooms, or shoots. The manure breaks down with the soil being turned, where as things like mushrooms and shoots grow in controlled organic mixtures.
I purposely go to farmers road side stands when in season to buy their produce. I also see the big tractor trailers arriving to dump a pile of either cow and horse manure or just chicken manure. After the previous season the earth hasn’t had time to rest, as the snow and ice stops any necessary break down. Thus, farmers need to give the earth a good hit of nitrogen and other minerals for the earth to make a quick rejuvenation to grow vegetables quickly, we have a short growing season as do some places in the USA.
C.M. C
October 4, 2012 at 6:19 am