I have been asked multiple time about using cotton “ snare trash ” as a garden amendment . This recent question from Bonnie here on the blog cue me that I should share my thoughts on it publicly .
David , I ’ve been hearing about free compost ( Gin Trash ) from the West FL Cotton Gin in Walnut Hill , FL . you may get as much as you want and they load it for you . I have intercourse they defoliate cotton fiber plant with herbicides before harvesting the cotton ( or at least they used to years ago ) so would this compost be safe to apply in our rest home gardens ? I understand farmers get it by the drone shipment to better their fields and call it BLACK GOLD . I ’ve known some local home gardeners that get public utility trailer payload and have had no problem with their crops .
In todays time where it is imperative to raise YOUR OWN FOOD TO SURVIVE , I do n’t want to risk contaminate my soil ( as with Grazon ) so would like your opinion .
I do have my own compost that I make but since I have to garden in containers due to my poor clay soil full of iron rock ‘n’ roll so I use a LOT of compost make full those swelled black kine mineral bathtub . I would appreciate your opinion / advice on this Gin Trash Compost . ( I ’m your neighbor in [ Lower Alabama ] AKA Deep South Bama GRITS on YT & Freesteading ) .
Thank you for the question . Let ’s jump in .
Gin Trash Grows Beautiful Tomatoes
Before we act to Lower Alabama , we had never lived in a cotton wool producing arena , and therefore had not been acquainted with the use of snare trash as a garden amendment .
Our former landlord , who is a sometime nurseryman and veritable planter of deer food plots , mentioned the value of gin trash as an amendment .
At first , I was quite concerned . Then , we came across a beautiful garden while driving through the passably old town of Atmore . Rachel and I were in our van , and we saw the garden – and the nurseryman in it – and I enunciate , “ Whoa – look at that fellow ’s awing tomato plant plant ! I need to talk to him ! ”
So I got out and said “ hi , ” leaving my rather humiliated wife in the car , and he was courteous enough to give me a garden tour . He was growing tomatoes , capsicum pepper plant and other produce which he sell to a local Mexican restaurant , among other outlets .
“ How did you grow these amazing tomatoes ? ” I asked . Tomatoes are not the easy industrial plant to spring up here in the Deep South .
“ I till in some snare trash and erstwhile peanut hull waste in former wintertime , and then implant them in the spring . I get it for complimentary , and load it up on my trailer . ”
He showed me his piles of rotten peanut hulls and a spile of deep , black , compost gin trash .
Now I was really concerned . It worked like magic , apparently . And in our acid , sandy moxie , constitutive subject was always lacking .
AsFarm Progress notes :
One human beings ’s trash is another military personnel ’s hoarded wealth is not only the saw upon which K and service department sales are based , it ’s also an apt verbal description of the sharpen need for what used to be called cotton gin waste .
In the preceding few days cotton fiber acreage has dropped across the Southeast , Price have fluctuate dramatically and King Cotton ’s crest seems to be crumbling . Not so for cotton gin trash — it has earned its fresh name Cotton Gin By - Product .
While a mellow percentage of the cotton uprise in the U.S. finds a home oversea , the cotton wool seed and other by - products , formerly roll in the hay as gin trash , stay right here . The market is good , prices are good and demand is up for these products .
Okay , well-to-do enough . It ’s the leftover waste from processing cotton . And it descend under the “ compost everything ! ” class .
But is Cotton Gin SAFE to Use?
Butthere ’s a pinch .
Like many of her neighbors in coastal North Carolina , Amy Midyette comes down with “ cotton influenza ” in the autumn . Her symptoms — asthma attacks , headaches , tremor and fatigue duty — last from two mean solar day to a calendar week . And they reoccur every time Farmer send up crop dusters to spray the fields near her home .
The chemical that bother Midyette and other residents of cotton - produce areas from the Carolinas to California are defoliants , used to wipe out the leaves on cotton wool plants before the mechanically skillful picker go in to harvest . It is n’t uncommon for the mist of these brawny neurotoxins to swan into neighborhoods . “ They even spray the fields powerful across the street from the elemental school , ” articulate Midyette .
Most people think of cotton as a “ natural ” product . The realism : Cotton is one of the most chemically intensive crops in the human beings . According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture , 84 million pounds of pesticides were use to the nation ’s 14.4 million acres of cotton fiber in the year 2000 , and more than two billion pounds of plant food were spread on those same W. C. Fields . Seven of the 15 pesticides ordinarily used on cotton in the United States are name as “ potential , ” “ likely , ” “ probable ” or “ roll in the hay ” human carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency . And cotton defoliants are “ the most toxic farm chemical substance currently on the mart , ” says Fawn Pattison , executive film director of the Agricultural Resources Center , a non-profit-making brass dedicate to reducing the consumption of harmful pesticides .
cotton fiber fields around here are spray heavily and repeatedly , and at the ending of the time of year , they are blasted again with defoliants before being glean for the cotton .
And Cotton Gin Trash is GMO…
Though it is reported that pesticide use on cotton has declined in recent years , it is because much of the cotton wool has nowalso been genetically modify :
Countless improvement have been distinguish for pesticide use around the Earth . Between 1992 and 2019 , Australian cotton growers have for exercise reduce their purpose of insecticide as measure in grams / bale by 97 % . Australian role of all types of pesticide perish down by 18.2 % in just five years between 2014 and 2019 . In the United States , cotton production has steady increased while overall pesticide use has remained consistent .
One of the reasons for the significant reduction in the utilization of insecticides is the global insertion of Bt cotton . Bt , a bacteria known as Bacillus thuringiensis , kills a diversity of dirt ball ( primarily worm pests ) that harm the cotton works . In the nineties , scientists were able-bodied to move the cistron that encodes Bt directly into a plant . After tight scientific rating , Bt cotton plant was place on the market in 1996 , allow for the plants to protect themselves with a significantly lower penury for insecticides . Together with integrated pest management practices and other advance , Bt cotton fiber helped drive down insecticide applications in the U.S. by 66 % in price of pounds / acre between 1994 and 2019 . Overall , while worldwide cotton plant production has risen , the total mass of insect powder used has declined .
Though GMO plant will compost just fine , it ’s worth reckon about if you want to avoid that practice .
Final Thoughts on Using Gin Trash
TheRodale Institute notes :
With all that in thinker , I can not in undecomposed faith utilisation cotton gin chicken feed , as much as I would get it on to have a free source of compost . We do n’t know how much these toxins will stop down in composting . I ’ve been very allure to get a load of it , along with a warhead of peanut hulls , and then mix the two to make a potting soil admixture for my nursery ; however , I just ca n’t get past the lean of toxic pesticides and weedkiller used in the production of cotton .
Yes , it will grow great - looking tomatoes . But at what cost ?
Yet again , we are being poisoned by Big Ag . Much as the manure and hay supply has been rendered toxic , cotton gin trash has also been subjected to the evils of science run murderously .
What is your risk leeway ?
We ca n’t reach flawlessness , but we can sure avoid some of the bad amendment in our gardens – and the risk / reward on cotton gin trash just does n’t add up for us .
