Is anyone using Bokashi bran and/or Active EM with their poultry yet?
Hi, I am new to poultry but have noticed some interesting stuff on internet around both Bokashi bran and/or Active EM use in poultry feed, water and general husbandry. Has anyone here got some experience here they could share please?
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hello Katherine, the person who introduced bokashi to NZ, Neville Burt is a member here and he recommends that we only need to wait a week for the bokashi contents to neutralise before it can be planted in. When you have time on your hands, scroll back to the first discussions on this comment wall for a read, there's a lot of interesting comments from various people who are using bokashi that you might find helpful. Great link thanks, really interesting reading:)
I haven't used the bokashi at all without first making sure it's completely broken down, but after reading today of other experiments with in ground bokashi composting (http://bokashiworld.wordpress.com) I'm starting to think of suitable sites in the garden for one for this summer's pumpkins. My bokashi mentor at the Wollongong Botanic Gardens apparently does away with the bokashi bucket altogether and just buries each day's scraps in her compost with a little bokashi bran. Every now and again needs to top up with grass clippings to create a new layer for burying in. Have you had any plants dislike the bokashi around their roots? I thought it might not be the right PH.
I've run out of spots to dig holes for the bokashi so I'm now using closed compost bins (think of them as above-ground holes!) to mix the bokashi and dirt in (often using manure in place of dirt). This week I started an experiment with a 'soil generator', much the same idea, after seeing Bryan McGrath's youtube video. The bokashi and manure mix doesn't break down as rapidly as the bokashi/soil mix, probably because the soil contains the rich ecology of microorganisms that racehorse manure does not (I'm guessing the horses are routinely wormed etc), but after a few weeks in the closed compost bin (layered - bokashi, soil or manure, bokashi, soil or manure) the worms love it. I often dig a bucket out at that stage and put it directly in the worm farm too.
Had been struggling with some perceived bokashi failures but it turns out I just needed to put a plastic bag over the top of the bokashi in the bin to reduce air flow. Now it moulds up beautifully. Need to remember to do the same to my inoculated bran mix.
I've heard that it's important to use unsulphured molasses rather than sulphered - has anyone else come across this?
Thanks Megan,
It was such a frosty winter and we had a couple of floods and now a dry dry summer that things are not sprouting. We get wonderful things from our compost bins though - melons, fabulous pumpkins, all sorts.
welcome Dallas, good on you for organising your "Bokashi team" - your trees must be flourishing! It will be interesting to see what comes up where you've buried your buckets - I've found fruit tree seedlings, pumpkins, tomatoes, avocados:) Too cold down here for the latter to survive but have given away a few as houseplants.
Thanks for the welcome Bridge Scully.
Unfortunately I don't seem to have success with the bokashi system at all. Maybe it is because I have a worm farm plus 6 compost bins and there is only me, so not much in the way of food scraps. I also forget to empty the liquid often enough. However, I enjoy reading about how others have success with Bokashi... :)
We live in Sandringham, Auckland and we also have a bit over 1 hectare of land in Waihi which we are re-foresting. I have a 'Bokashi Team' - I bought cheap bokashi buckets on Trade Me for a couple of my colleagues and my daughter and my neighbour. They all fill them up, drop them off at my place and I take them to my land, use the contents, clean the buckets and drop them off to respective houses. If any of you are living in or near Sandringham and find, as many others do, that you run out of spots to bury your bokashi, please join my team. I can use as much as you can produce!
And if you wear gardening gloves to avoid getting bokashi grit under your fingernails, check out my group 'Glove Love'
I started using the bokashi system after seeing my nephew's. I went to worms-r-us in Manukau and bought 6 units for family members. Got quite a good discount. My nephew had told me about the potato masher. Have been digging it in to my raised beds.