Large-scale composting turns waste into healthy soil

Twenty-five years ago, farmer Redge Jelliman was fed up. He had been paying a fortune for chemical fertiliser, yet it had failed to generate the yields he expected from his crops. Realising the time had come for an alternative, he had his soil analysed in the US, and went on to apply raw livestock manure to his soil instead. In time, he began composting the manure, which significantly improved his soil and yields.

FRUSTRATION

“I’d become frustrated with fertiliser advisers constantly telling me that applying more chemical fertiliser to my soil would solve my suboptimal crop yield problem,” Jelliman recalls. “At that time, I happened to listen to a presentation by a visiting international soil health expert, who urged me to send my soil samples to Perry Agricultural Laboratory in the US.”

Having up until then used only South African soil-testing laboratories, which did not have the analytical capabilities of laboratories in the US, Jelliman was amazed at the detailed results generated by the Perry laboratory.