Wood chips and composting

[jaxs]

Theres over 19 different directions you can go with large quantities of wood chip. It would help if we knew if you are looking to just get rid of them without making a mess or want as much soil benifit as cam be had from them. What king of equipment you have and if time is a factor. Mixed with manure, kept moist and stired every 90 days will yield fine mulch withing a year. Good compost withing 2 years. Left 8" deep around trees and extending half way to edge of root zone will hugely benifit trees in dry areas.

 

[CalG]

Are you using a chipper or shredder to produce compost? If your using a chipper, which make and model.

I want to make compost but my Wallenstein 4" gravity chipper produces very large chips that will likely take years to break down enough to use as compost. It also produces a lot of small twigs and a lot of the small branches (with needles) get spit out whole. I have tried spreading the chipped material out and running over it with the brush hog and that certainly makes the chips a LOT smaller but it involves too much time and effort. I would prefer a once and done approach.

A few years back, the power company sent tree service contractors out to clear the lines in our area.

When they were nearby, I asked the foreman if the chips were available, and I could take some and so save his off loading time. Whey! That was a lot of rough chips to send through the shredder fork full after fork full, then move the tractor and repeat. But, It did produce a great amount of suitable garden mulch and chip compost... Question is, where did it all go?

 

[jaxs]

A few years back, the power company sent tree service contractors out to clear the lines in our area.

When they were nearby, I asked the foreman if the chips were available, and I could take some and so save his off loading time. Whey! That was a lot of rough chips to send through the shredder fork full after fork full, then move the tractor and repeat. But, It did produce a great amount of suitable garden mulch and chip compost... Question is, where did it all go?

It does make you wonder but it soon reduces to less than 10% original volume then eventually consumed by microbes in soil but it makes soil much better growing medium.

 

[RalphVa]

Are you using a chipper or shredder to produce compost? If your using a chipper, which make and model.

I want to make compost but my Wallenstein 4" gravity chipper produces very large chips that will likely take years to break down enough to use as compost. It also produces a lot of small twigs and a lot of the small branches (with needles) get spit out whole. I have tried spreading the chipped material out and running over it with the brush hog and that certainly makes the chips a LOT smaller but it involves too much time and effort. I would prefer a once and done approach.

I currently have a WM WC46 and run it at 450 PTO rpm and 5 speed on the hydraulic feed.

Before, for 16 years, I used a MacKissic TPH-122

 

[Hilbilly]

I currently have a WM WC46 and run it at 450 PTO rpm and 5 speed on the hydraulic feed.

Before, for 16 years, I used a MacKissic TPH-122

Does your WC46 produces compostable sized materials? I've watched all kinds of YT videos showing the Woodland Mills chippers in action but none of them show the chip sizes with any clarity.

Here are some pics of the stuff I chipped over the last few days with my Beco 4" gravity chipper. These pics don't show the wood chips, since they have been covered by the green branches and tree tops. As you can see these are not finely chopped. There are also a couple of pics showing the material I chipped about 3 years ago and then ran over it with the brush mower to chop it up. This material looks like decent composting materials but I'm a little concerned that nothing has started to grow on that pile.

The trees around here consist of Pine, Spruce, Cedar, Poplar, Birch, Alder and Cottonwood.

 

[Bill Guenthner]

Cut down some trees for firewood, and going to run the tops through the chipper. So I’ll have bucketloads.

Can this be used to compost?

If so what else should I add?

Can I just dump it in a pile or do I need to contain it?

TIA.

The microbes that digest wood need nitrogen and water to do their job. Put them in a pile and mix in some nitrogen fertilizer and keep it watered. I pile them into natural ravines that channel rainwater. Pine will take a year or two to turn into lovely compost. Hardwoods will take about four years. Cedar will last until the end of time.
The soil in the raised beds is 100% composted wood chips (with some hugelkultur going on at the bottom)

 

[Hilbilly]

I had to look up hugelkultur and it looks very interesting. Might give it a try and thanks for the info about using nitrogen fertilizer on the wood chips. I thought the green material in the compost pile was the nitrogen supply. Is that wrong? I like your second picture. That looks like very good compost.

As far as cedar taking forever to rot, my experience says otherwise. Years ago I made a compost box out of cedar, thinking it would last forever. However it only took a few years and it was rotten and had to be replaced. Maybe it was due to the wet dry cycles or just the way the cedar was exposed but whatever the reason' it did not last very long. With my luck it WILL last forever when I want it to decompose, lol.

 

[jyoutz]

anything that will go thru my 16" Vermeer and gets chipped goes in the dirt to rot. If you leave it on top it takes longer but will work.---spread it med. thickness, plow under 18" deep and good to go! Mixing green material and manures does wonders to speed up the process.
I add a lot of commercial fertilizers to it as well to offset the N lock that they claim happens with wood chips. I still dont believe it but i am no chemist! lol!

It’s actually a biological process. The nitrogen fixing bacteria go to work breaking down the wood chips and don’t do their normal job inoculating the soil with nitrogen. Therefore the soil is nutrient poor during the time it takes to break down the wood chips. Anytime chips are added to the soil, nitrogen needs to be added also.

 

[RalphVa]

Does your WC46 produces compostable sized materials? I've watched all kinds of YT videos showing the Woodland Mills chippers in action but none of them show the chip sizes with any clarity.

Here are some pics of the stuff I chipped over the last few days with my Beco 4" gravity chipper. These pics don't show the wood chips, since they have been covered by the green branches and tree tops. As you can see these are not finely chopped. There are also a couple of pics showing the material I chipped about 3 years ago and then ran over it with the brush mower to chop it up. This material looks like decent composting materials but I'm a little concerned that nothing has started to grow on that pile.

The trees around here consist of Pine, Spruce, Cedar, Poplar, Birch, Alder and Cottonwood.

View attachment 742434View attachment 742435View attachment 742436View attachment 742437View attachment 742438View attachment 742439

The WC46 at half speed on hydraulic and 450 rpm PTO makes bigger chips that shown.

 

[newbury]

The microbes that digest wood need nitrogen and water to do their job. Put them in a pile and mix in some nitrogen fertilizer and keep it watered. I pile them into natural ravines that channel rainwater. Pine will take a year or two to turn into lovely compost. Hardwoods will take about four years. Cedar will last until the end of time.
The soil in the raised beds is 100% composted wood chips (with some hugelkultur going on at the bottom)

It’s actually a biological process. The nitrogen fixing bacteria go to work breaking down the wood chips and don’t do their normal job inoculating the soil with nitrogen. Therefore the soil is nutrient poor during the time it takes to break down the wood chips. Anytime chips are added to the soil, nitrogen needs to be added also.

And one thing that it seems to have been ignored - local climate.
Things compost slower when it's colder.

 

[jyoutz]

And one thing that it seems to have been ignored - local climate.
Things compost slower when it's colder.

Or dryer

 

[ultrarunner]

My best mulch chips are old growth heart redwood...

Still have a few 100 year old posts around the place...

 

[Hilbilly]

About 3 or 4 years ago I managed to get 40 16' cedar logs and stored them on sacrificial logs, to keep them off the ground. I used a lot of them right away and left a few for later use. Last week I went to mill them into lumber and the ones on the bottom of the pile were rotten and unusable. Probably because the bark was still on them.

The weather here varies from -40*C in the winter to plus 44*C in the summer and we don't normally get large amounts of rain.

I just started composted grass clippings mixed with sawdust, last year and that was very successful. I had good compost within a few months. But that was putting in the effort to make sure it was moist, rotated and mixed at a ratio of about 2 to 1. The wood chips that were just left to their own, after running them through the brush mower, started to heat up but then stalled. That was a few years ago.

I don't have any experience with just leaving the wood chips as shown on the pictures I posted and don't know if they will compost on their own or will need to be attended to, like the grass clippings.

 

[Hilbilly]

The WC46 at half speed on hydraulic and 450 rpm PTO makes bigger chips that shown.

Thanks for that information. Looks like you may have saved me some $$$$, since I now know there is no point in getting a Woodland Mills chipper with the hopes it will produce much smaller chips and greens.

 

[jyoutz]

My best mulch chips are old growth heart redwood...

Still have a few 100 year old posts around the place...

Old growth heart redwood is pretty much unobtainable nowadays.

 

[ultrarunner]

Old growth heart redwood is pretty much unobtainable nowadays.

Unless you have a connection to the Santa Cruz CA fire zone.

My best friend lost everything during the fire and is now rebuilding his shop with salvage Heart Redwood he is milling on his property... 6 miles up the mountain on a dirt road.

He has lots of chips from cleanup going on.

 

[jaxs]

Unless you have a connection to the Santa Cruz CA fire zone.

My best friend lost everything during the fire and is now rebuilding his shop with salvage Heart Redwood he is milling on his property... 6 miles up the mountain on a dirt road.

He has lots of chips from cleanup going on.

Lucky hounds! To give you an idea how difficult Redwood is to find in Texas,I salvaged 1"x12"x8' Redwood boards from an old home that was to be demolished and advertised them for $80 each thinking buyers would want to haggle over paying that for used lumber. Had the usual inquiries saying surly I couldn't be serious and did I mean $8 instead. A boat builder that restores wood pleasure boats drove 200 miles one way to buy all I had.

 

[orangetree]

first, for composting you need a good ratio of "nitrogen rich" to "carbon rich". Wood chips are the latter. Food waste and green foliage are the former. If you mix in grass clippings you'll get better results.

Second, as others have mentioned, heat is your friend on speed. So if you can make an 8foot pile of it, keep it moist (but not wet), it will literally start smoking and go much faster. Note it's technically possible for it to self-combust, so don't go crazy if you're in a dry area.

That said, as a kid our family took 50+ truckloads from a local commercial tree service we knew who was looking for a free place to dump (what was waste for him). 10 years later, that was some GREAT soil ... so i you're patient.

 

[jaxs]

About 3 or 4 years ago I managed to get 40 16' cedar logs and stored them on sacrificial logs, to keep them off the ground. I used a lot of them right away and left a few for later use. Last week I went to mill them into lumber and the ones on the bottom of the pile were rotten and unusable. Probably because the bark was still on them.

The weather here varies from -40*C in the winter to plus 44*C in the summer and we don't normally get large amounts of rain.

Cedar can mean different trees,depending on where you are located. What we call "cedar" in Texas is Juniperus virginiana that when used as fence posts resists rot for decades,taking the back seat only to Bois-D-Arc. Did I mention that it depends on where you are located? Well if you happen to be located at a building material outlet in Texas asking for cedar,you recieve one from NW USA that in no way resembles what grows here. If you insist on buying some grown locally, you must go to a furniture wood distributor, sawmill or mill it yourself.
On a side note. Heading South from the Red River,as you get nearer the Rio Granda,you might want to taste a sample before ordering chili. Most places serve something similar to that found on supermarket shelves but as you get nearer Rio Granda they might bring a bowl of a for desert and afor the following day.
.

 

[Hilbilly]

first, for composting you need a good ratio of "nitrogen rich" to "carbon rich". Wood chips are the latter. Food waste and green foliage are the former. If you mix in grass clippings you'll get better results.

Second, as others have mentioned, heat is your friend on speed. So if you can make an 8foot pile of it, keep it moist (but not wet), it will literally start smoking and go much faster. Note it's technically possible for it to self-combust, so don't go crazy if you're in a dry area.

That said, as a kid our family took 50+ truckloads from a local commercial tree service we knew who was looking for a free place to dump (what was waste for him). 10 years later, that was some GREAT soil ... so i you're patient.

Thanks.

The pile of fresh chips that I posted earlier are about 1/4 of what I will end up with after some clearing I'm doing. Most of the trees will be used for lumber or firewood, depending on diameter and the rest will get chipped and piled for composting. Not sure If I have 10 years to wait though. At my age, I might be compost by then, lol.