How fast do wood chips decompose
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2018
- In this video, I discuss the factors that determine how quickly wood chips decompose and settle.
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Great info, very nice to hear a good explanation of the process.
This last fall I put up a chicken wire fence about 2 ft high the size of a 30 x 3 ft raised bed. Then filled it with double cut leafs. In to I added the chicken coop litter and topped it with cardboard. Today I turned over a small area and what a great smell I got. Can't wait for the spring planting .
i'm watching this video as an experienced wood chip mulch gardener and i definitely learned a ton with this video. thank you :)
In high desert here in Colorado it takes years and years even for small chips to decay. Decomposition varies and depends on a lot of things. Great video.
Exactly! Here in East TN we get 45-50 inches of rain/year and have temps mild enough for soil microbes to do their work almost all year long. So it just depends.
Wow. Yeah I am in central Tennessee. It depends on the year and the type of wood chips. If I get wood chips from the summer months with leaves Mixtown I can get about 25% decomposition per year. Maybe a little bit more if I try to keep it wet or if I add nitrogen like clippings or urine or manure.
If I make a mistake and it's either a really dry year or I get wood chips with 100% carbon from a tree cut down in the winter with no leaves, I maybe get 5% breakdown per year which is a lot slower than I expected. I made a mistake about a year ago and got about 60 yards of mulch there was 100% carbon basically like sawdust. I still have 95% of it for sure. Other areas where I got leaves, after two years I may be have 30% left which is wild. So maybe even 60% breakdown in two years but that's kind of rare and I had a lot of leaves and manure and water constantly mixed with that one
Wow, you touched on several concepts that I had not heard about wood chips before, and you did it in a very clear way. Excellent!
Thank you!
Very informative on woodchips! Wish I could find some! But since I am in a rural small town its almost impossible! I did use bark one year, but not sure how good it was to use. It has broke down fairly well! I have called tree trimmers and they always say, when we are in your area, but they never follow through! Blessings!
I keep my wood chips moist, and they decompose quite rapidly. I just had my first chip drop and it has taken me a few weeks to move it all from my drive way. I was surprised that the chips in the middle was mostly broken down, so I continue to keep moist.
So agree with you, it takes so long for woodchips to decompose
I use cardboard box 📦, compost, and woodchips on top to start my garden,
That’s why I dig a hole to plant my plants in the soil layer, it won’t grow well if I plant in the woodchips layer
I use cardboard a lot, too. It's free, it works, and you're saving the energy/waste of having it recycled or just thrown in a landfill.
Thanks Kevin, appreciate it. 👍
Extremely well presented 👍🇦🇺😎
man....u talk about this like you just wrote a doctorate paper on it. lol . good info
Thanks, I've subbed and will check out other vids. I've only recently discovered the world of making my own soil and I guess with fine wood chips you could hot compost with a good nitrogen mix and reduce your chips to a soil like consistency in under a year, depending on climate as you stated. I'm trying this now with coffee grinds 30% wood chips 50% food scraps 20%.
No, no. Do not add woodchips to compost. It should be used as a mulch only, or it will take the nitrogen released by decomposition of organic matter. See mrchips.pt
Thank you for that information.
OMG! Thank you from Catskill NY. Your brilliant!
You are so welcome! Thanks for watching!
Already placing my woodchips now, small to medium size chips.
Also depends on the source of your woodchips. If you get chips that don't include small branches and foliage, then they will be significantly slower to decompose. I've heard the best free chips to request off of chipdrop are the ones that include multiple species, leaves, and uncut large pieces (think free firewood, huegelculture, etc).
That's right!
3 summers to convert woodchips and chainsaw dust to dirt in zone 7. Gainesville Va. About 4 inches of original debris depth equated to 2 inches of soil in three summers very little rain for the last 2 out of three years the chip field was well shaded along a 6 foot tall wooden fence with raspberry thicket shading the chips . The chips were generated on site to clear and reconstruct the fence
Oh mostly cedar tree debris
I just created a wicking garden which consists of woodchips in a 3 feet deep by 3 ft wide with all the topsoil in a row with the wood chips on either side. For now, it is going to be a wicking garden where the topsoil will wick up moisture and nutrition from the side row of wood chips. After 4 or 5 years the woodchips should be great for planting in. My question is what editable mushroom inoculate can I use to put into the wood chips that would speed up the decaying process and give me a crop of mushrooms? I have 19 tandem axle loads of mulch in these rows of 100 ft. 2nd can I start something in July of 2022?
I don't have any real experience inoculating mushrooms in our wood chip paths that we've been using for years. However, I have seen white cap mushrooms growing in our paths. The thing that I think is most important when hoping to convert wood chips into good soil for growing vegetables is using lots of the very small branches with intact bark with a higher volume of bark/ cambium layer relative to the core wood itself. That means the more small branches that are mulched up the better for the soil to develop over time. Sorry it's taking me so long to get back to you. I hope this is helpful!
I started composting sawdust and tea leaves in a bucket then all tea leaves got composted early and sawdust still same after 2 months. Then i addes urea mixed with water and sawdust started composting now. Is it good idea or bad? When i use compost in plants will there be to much nitrogen to burn the plants?
This was a great 👍! We have a low spot and when it rains we have a puddle of water almost 12” deep in 1/3 of our backyard. We are in New Jersey close to the city. We have a tree 🌳 that’s going to be cut. And we are thinking of putting wood chips.. you talked about wood chips floating around when it rains. Will putting a landscape paper over it help.
That is awesome!
So you recommend it? It’s our neighbor’s tree. Would you happen to know if we need any permission? Will landscape paper be a good idea?
Kevin Wallace sorry I am rewriting the same message.. so my question was do you recommend it? It’s our neighbors tree. Do I need any permission? Do I put landscape fabric on top? Approximately how long will it take to decompose?
I'll make a video and try to answer these questions. Thank you.
Hi, great video. I am in S. Oregon, an urban back yard guy of 80 years, but very unto Permaculture beds. Last year I built new beds on grass covered with cardboard and the lasagne layers. Amazing production. Right now I am starting to convert my old garden to Permaculture. This requires fewer layers I understand. But do I chop and drop the old plants and then add the compost, then mulch or?
What will you be growing in these beds?
Kevin Wallace brassicas
I'll go over the steps I've used in another ask me anything video. Great question.
Is your area a high desert area? How much rain do you get?
Hi I'm going to ysed a 1 square metre tote as a heet exchanger how do you get it to start heating up
I wouldn't expect any significant heat generation from wood chips alone especially in small volumes as you have described. And additional nitrogen source would be needed and I believe that the tote would need to be insulated around the perimeter to be able to capture enough heat for your exchange system. I hope this is helpful. Thank you
Thank you.
You're welcome!
I've been collecting organic material including wood chips... I have been composting it down with the hopes that I can fill a low area in my yard and being able to turn that area into garden space... What limitations am I going to be facing? How deep can I make the area? At one spot, I may need to build it up 2 feet... Your thoughts?
If you have a deep hole to fill, you can start with inert fill material. Rocks, broken concrete, stuff like that, just to take up space. It will also ensure good drainage. I had a nasty trough dug through part of my yard where the rain had been running down off the neighbor's slope and eroding it. Filled it partway with busted concrete from another project, built it up with organic material to start developing soil, and *presto* no more erosion problem.
That’s too deep. Try for 4 to 7 inches as optimal for gardening.
@@judeirwin2222 he's just trying to level out a low spot in his yard. For which wood chips will work just fine. Two feet would indeed be way too deep for most gardening.
is there a possibility that having a higher pressure could play a factor. I know that it's good to have lots of air in the soil but what about having a lot of pressure which you get from larger piles?
I believe it breaks down to surface area of the particles that are going to be broken down. With larger piles there is greater pressure however there is a net reduction in surface area because of the close contact of each of the particles. I suspect based on this and decreased penetration at the breakdown process would be slower. I have had the opportunity to get access to very large piles and our town garage and at a tree service where the head both been storing large piles of wood chips for several years. The breakdown was enhanced by the turning of the piles which was done at one location however in the location where there was a large pile left for several years the breakdown was much less.
How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
How much wood chips could a wood chuck chip if a wood chuck could chip wood?
I will absolutely, 100% take the risk and stand down wind of a wood chip drop consisting of pure cedar trees.....omg, no need to go to bed, bath, and beyond after that, I got perfect candle smell year round!
How long does it take for Sandalwood to decompose in Ashburn Virginia?
Hi Lauren, sorry it took me so long to respond to your question. I actually don't know how long it would take for sandalwood to break down. It is great wood for woodworking and has a really nice grain making me think that it would takes quite some time for it to break down. The smaller the chips and the more diverse fungal microbial communities feeding on other mixed softwoods would help to speed up the process. Small limbs and twigs will break down rather quickly however the core would will probably take as much as 3 years to break down. Those are my best guesses I hope this is helpful. Have a great day!
@@GrowingABetterTomorrow No problem. Thank you very much for your honest answer. I have another question. How long does it take for firematches to decompose? I hope you have a great day as well Sorry for the late reply.
How much soil do wood chips break down to?
I think you forgot growing mushrooms with the wood chips also.
Hi Kevin, thanks for the question. Thus far my experience has been that when I put down a little over 1 ft deep of wood chips I end up with about one to two inches of soil on the surface of the ground. However, it's important to realize that the microorganisms and the earthworms take a lot of that carbonaceous material and incorporate it into the subsoil. So when I dig out my subsoil, which in my case is gravel/sand, I see a darkening of the color and more moisture retention. So although the surface of the soil is not significantly raised when putting on a significant volume of wood chips the ultimate result is improvement of the subsoil and ultimately turning the subsoil into a layer of topsoil with extra humus. Alexa how do you spell humus how do you spell hummus.
@@GrowingABetterTomorrow my garden is in the annual flood plane where the last ice age grass grows, so I'll probably just see it all sit on the surface, but thanks for letting me know the approximation. I get away with not watering my plants :D
dear , how big your garden is ...sathish from india
Hi sathish from India thank you for the question. we have three garden plots that are located around our home and workshop area. each garden plot has multiple permanent raise beds where we grow our annual and we have two several acre food forest that are in various stages of development and we are developing our third food forest at this time. we are whole food plant-based people that grow most of the foods that we consume each year. do you have gardens? if so what are you growing? thank you for the question.
I just add wood chips on my garden, but I found many carpenter ants in my garden before I put wood chips . Now I am worrying those wood chips would let me have more and more caprenter ants. do you find wood chips attract carpenter ants? if it does, is there any effective and safe way to get rid of it ?
No, I haven't had any problems with Carpenter ants in our massive amounts of wood chips that we've been dealing with over the years. Carpenter ants dig tunnels in intact wood. They don't consume wood. Woodchips don't provide adequate space for them to do their carvings and set up their nests. I hope this helps!
@@GrowingABetterTomorrow thank you so much for your information
So, how long does it take. You didn't say.
It just depends. As he pointed out it will depend on all sorts of factors. There's no single answer that will work for everyone.
💗
I always get my mulch in late spring so it has plenty of leaves and moisture.
Where can I get wood cheap?
Chipdrop
@@dandyman251 I've been signed up with that chip drop service for two years and have never heard back LOL. I found my source by calling the county and asking what they do with the chips when they or the utility company clear trees and branches away from roadsides and power lines. Turns out they're under contract with a private company who takes them all; but even though I pay $30 a truckload (2-3 cubic yards) to them, that's still *much* cheaper than buying chips or mulch etc from a garden center or big box store. That same company also sells finished compost but I haven't bought any from them yet. There's a big mushroom farm nearby that sells their once-used mushroom compost pretty cheap. So you just have to get creative and start calling around your area.
@@dystopiagear6999 I think the "exhausted" * mushroom compost is a good _substrate_ even if it may not have a lot of nutrients. But it offers structur, pores for air, water holding capicity. In short all your soil life needs as a habitat and you can add the compost and nutrients and food for the soil life - once they have the habitat.
* it is only exhausted in for the mushroom production
Mushroom soil is transformed carbon rich (woody) material, mushrooms love that, they are the visible output of fungi in carbon rich soil.
Why the casket dont decompose even after many decades?? How many years require for the casket to become soil.
Many caskets are made with chemically treated wood that is not environmentally friendly.
Very informative, however, it never answered the question which was "How fast do wood chips decompose?"
In the video, I mentioned multiple factors that determine the rate of decomposition, therefore once one knows each of those variables one can give an estimate of the decomposition time to be expected.
I'm in MA and decomposition takes place 3-6 months on average and after a year there isn't much left... I constantly have to add them. My chips vary in size but looks like what's shown in the video.
@@kahvac Thanks for the info
@@GrowingABetterTomorrow Forgot to mention I also have some hardwood chips maybe about 1" thick 2" long or so mixed in with regular chips these larger chips usually last for several years but will eventually break down. Its a beautiful thing bacteria and fungus work 24/7 improving the soil all the time.
The entirety of the video was basically saying that there are numerous factors affecting the decomposition rate and he went into detail into each of those reasons.
In my hot, dry sandy location, woodchips spread on the ground and left undisturbed will remain in place for several years, although if dug into the sandy soil they will disappear by the end of the first winter.
excellent contribution David. both moisture and temperature are as important for microbial communities that break down wood chips as it is for plants that grow in our gardens. our plants wouldn't grow without adequate moisture and the microbes that break down cellulose material in wood chips also require an appropriate amount of moisture, darkness and warmth.
You have very good skin! Hardly any wrinkles! What’s your secret? Wooschips? 😁
Thank you Karen!
Oil of Ole , twice a day
Hard wood chips also will break down faster than pine chips and needles
I been using woodchips but only probably I have with it attracts a lot of cockroaches😩😏. I live in northern CA and we only get rains in the winter so it’s very slow process
Samina Irfan I am in S. Oregon, Samina, and my chips decompose fairly rapidly.
I’m in NorCal as well and my wood chips arrived in July at the peak of summer. We’ve all been sneezing and coughing due to the mold and dust every time the wood chips are disturbed. Hope bring things get better after the rains, if it rains.
Have your chips broken down much since receiving them? I probably will not do this again since the yard is small and the drop was huge.
z boz it broke down some cause I been adding my kitchen scraps and watering it but it’s very slow process so I probably won’t do it again. It’s great if you get a lot of rain otherwise it’s not worth it in my opinion. I rather collect leaves cause they do work faster
@@tubeslicker If the chips are delivered in mouldy shape ( _that_ kind of mould) be very careful, wear a mask, that is a health risk could trigger persons that have asthma, or a weak immune system, make existing allergies worse, etc.).
Like he said he wore a mask, when clearing the chicken coop. I wonder if the material does not also affect the chickens and their respiratory organs they scratch so much around.
maybe if he added more most material to the coop or cleared it more often ?
When the chips just have started breaking down then let them sit in a heap protect them from evaporatio, but have them in half shade so they have it cozy. Not too warm and a little moist. Then and with the added nitrogen they should break down fast.
Another option: add urine (yes from humans) and some water, the nitrogen changes what processes go on and which fungi and bacteria dominate. The ones that you want can take over. Coffee grounds, and green waste are good nitrogen sources as well.
isn't the thermophilic STEAM from fresh bioactive wood chips KILLING off most if not all of the harmful microbes & any harm is ultimately mitigated by the HEALTH of the CONSUMER/INHALER ?
The temperatures when we're breaking down the wood chips don't actually get so high as to reach the thermophilic temperatures that we achieve when we're doing composting. The breakdown of the wood chips is predominantly accomplished by fungal activity and these spores that are the replication units produced by the fungal organisms are a potential hazard if inhaled. Those spores do not get broken down by the temperatures produced in a decomposing woodchip pile. Spores are quite resilient to the temperatures achieved in a pile of wood chips. Sorry for the delay in getting back to your question I just discovered it now. Thanks for the question and have an awesome day!
Appreciate Your time & illuminating reply; some of Us do have busy real lives - offline.
I’m still spreading a HUGE pile of arborist Eucalyptus wood•chips we got weeks ago ( which smell AMAZING in a heap even at a distance of 40yards & more subtly spread out 4"-12" thick in garden beds; I even harvested a few big jars of the fresh leaves & am making Eucalyptus/Olive Oil for topical therapeutic use; I’ve easily jarred about US$200.00 worth in production. ). They started steaming with “activity” on the second day; more dramatically on cooler foggy mornings.
I reckoned there are fungal spores in the vapors, however, as with most self limited dis•eases triggered from atmospheric sources ( pollution, drug tar, contagious bugs, etc ), our bodies’ multifaceted defense systems ( robust “immunity” in healthy individuals ) are well armed for action. After a few days of mulching, I did develop a mild bit of coughing & sneezing ( our bodies natural healthy “CURES” / responses to eliminating any contaminants from our lungs & pharynx - often confused with dis•ease themselves ). I’m very fit & healthy; so, although I reckon these are signs of insignificant spore pathogens in my body, I do want to limit that ingestion as much as possible; so, per your previous suggestion, I now usually don a face•diaper/dust•mask when digging into the heap. It’s seems to be sufficient protection, eliminating any symptomatic coughing & sneezing, although the marvelous sensational Eucalyptus vapor that permeates even surgical masks is almost intoxicating ( if not therapeutic ); I bet with other types of wood•chips the aroma is far less interesting.
As Louie Pasteur stated quite clearly for anyone paying attention: “Le germe n'est rien, c'est le terrain qui est tout. // ie: The microbe is nothing, the terrain is everything..”
I've never understood the "common wisdom" that too much wood chip "takes up all the nitrogen in your soil". Yes if you use nothing but wood ships that can be an issue. But N is the very easiest thing to add to your garden... a quart of fish emulsion is cheap and will make *many* gallons of organic N fertilizer that doesn't burn your plants or kill off beneficial microbes.
Univ of Washington research shows woodchips actually increase N over time. There are many myths about woodchip mulch. See mrchips.pt for lots of good links and facts.
@@judeirwin2222 right, the people who freak out about it are way too concerned about the short term. They tend to ignore that the whole purpose of using wood chips is to build up quality soil over time as they break down, and that other sources of N can be used to address any short-term issues. Again, if one tried to grow in nothing but a bucket of woodchips, yeah that would present some problems.
For nitrogen it's very not necessary to buy fertilizer . Just use your urine as very high source of nitrogen
Wood chips _bind_ the nitrogen _temporarily_ for the time when they break down form the _surrounding_ soil. When they are mixed under that process happens everywhere in the growing layer. Now - if an unexperienced (or experimenting) gardener mixes them into the layer where the roots of the plants are that _could_ mess with harvests for 1 - 3 years. In the end they will release the nitrogen they bind after they have decomposed (I heard some of it evaporates in form of nitrogen gas though).
And if you add nutrient rich compost or even blood meal, or fish meal etc (except for the conventional stuff, but that is usually not good for soil life) it still takes some time that the nitrogen will be in a form (nitrate) that the plants can use.
Moderate gifts of conventional readily available nitrogen might help fix a nitrogen deficiency, but it may be better not to shop for that problem in the first place.
If you start to build the soil it is better not to tempt your luck and only work in broken down chips, and using wood chips only as durable ground cover for beds. and to compost them away from the plants you want to grow.
The exception to the rule would be wet very heavy clay soil, there working in wood chips could be the only thing that could add structure over time. In which case you do not expept any decent harvest in the first years anyway. One could plant pioneer plants (Daikon radish) or legumes (nitrogen fixer) or any hardy plant with deep or extensive roots. The crops are not the reason to grow them (they are a side effect to the extent that there are any), the roots that start opening up the soil (pottery quality material) ARE the harvest.
As mulch wood chimps perform another task than as compost raw material - they create good conditions for the soil life under the top cover and they usually are good in preventing germination from seeds that are planted by birds and wind. so they make weeding much easier. if there are weeds they are also easier to pull out.
They also take up moisture so if it rains it is less messy.
What I saw is that Paul Gautchi (Back to Eden) has very little mess when he digs out his root vegetables because he uses wood chips (but he does not work the raw chips into the soil, they are in the chicken coop before). The bulbs are at least partially in the wood chip zone.
He showed that advantage for potatoes: the bulb is partially in the loose wood chip layer only the _roots_ are in the soil under the woodchips. The bulb grows upwards and in conventional gardening the gardeneres must make little mounds over it to protect it from light. If the bulb can shove the top layer easily aside to create space for its growth (so that costs the plant also less energy ! only the roots have to work their way into soil (which is excellent of course in the garden of paul Gautchi). they lift the wood chips at that point but it cover is not broken, and there is no mound necessary. So less work.
One can mix them int the soil (using them as compost not as mulch) it they pre rot with nitrogen rich material (like chicken poop, or grass clippings). If they are fairly advanced in the process of decomposition, the nitrogen binding is less of an issue even if they are mixed under.
Some gardeners had no problem with mixing wood chips under. I think if you have good soil and it has been a garden long before that is not as much of an issue. And it depends what they grow (needs good soil or it is even a legume, that fixes nitrogen out of the air).
But people that converted a lawn or meadow into a garden and misunderstood the concept of woodchips as mulch versus wood chips or any other carbon rich bio mass as compost material (Back to Eden beginners that misunderstood the idea - that are not explained well in the movie that went viral) and mixed them under usually suffer in the first years. In that case woodchips are supposed to be only on the top as protecitve cover. They break down slowlier on top than in the soil so there is no nitrogen binding going on - no noticeable effects.
It is the nitrogen from the surrounding air that will be bound for a while - so people also get away with filling higher raised beds with logs and branches at the bottom and spent soil on top of that. It does take nitrogen from the surrounding soil - but that does not affect the layers on top with more nutrients incl. nitrogen where the crops grow.So there is a zone with bacteria dominated soil and at the bottom the fungi slowly process the wood that is used as filler. After 3 years a lot of that will have broken down beautifully (even larger logs) if the bed is kept moist.
I also assume that IF there is little nitrogen availabel (only what the chips might have) the wood is broken down by fungi that can make do w/o. Likley the nitrogen makes the process easier for them or faster and IF there is soil with nitrogen they will draw that. I read from a woman in Iowa who had a lucky accident.
Hard to find organic wood chips, so she ordered more than needed. stored the bags outside. They were in clear bags (trapping the sun), the rain entered and the chips broke down in 2 months.
I suspect the bag material did not hold up well under the sun and UV light. She said that the summers in Iowa are sunny but they also get good rain. So the woodchips had it warm and moist and likely some air went in.
2 months (and not manipulation from her) is pretty good.
Rather coarse pine chips. It is possible that the material had lots of twigs etc. so for wood chips good in nitrogen.
But they could not draw any nitrogen from soil, there wasn't any. either those fungi can get nitrogen out of the air - or if they must - they can make do w/o.
I assume she had the right temperature range - not too hot but warm enough to give the moist chips a boost and to help the fungi in the bag - that did not get any other help.