About Cotton Burr Compost

About the Boll

• Cotton plants are heavy feeders. They take up a lot of soil nutrients, especially nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These are the three main ingredients in most commercial fertilizers. When farmers harvest the cotton, machinery extracts the tufts of cotton from the burrs, or bolls. The bolls are separated during harvesting and processing. Harvesting the long-staple varieties leaves the bolls, stems and leaves together, but mechanical "strippers" pick the short-staple varieties that take boll and tuft together, leaving the bolls separated without stems and leaves during ginning.

Self Catalyzing

• The bolls themselves are rich in nitrogen, with hard structures composed of carbon. In most compost operations, nitrogen-rich material mixes with carbon to facilitate the composting process. This is generally done in a compost bin or compost pile frequently wetted and turned, with nitrogen catalysts added to high-carbon materials. Cotton burrs contain the right ratio of nitrogen and carbon to compost themselves without catalysts. All they require is water.

Clay Breaker

• Cotton burrs' self-composting property makes it especially valuable for breaking up clay soils. Clay holds water well, but compacts too easily to allow easy root growth. Mix clay with humus and sand to create an ideal soil composition. Cotton burrs, when tilled into clay soil, separate the clay then begin decomposition. When decomposition ends, the looser soil is more advantageous for root growth, and the cotton burr compost has almost double the nutrient levels of composted cow manure.

Protein Rich

• One key to healthy soil is a high content of diverse microorganisms. Beneficial microorganisms improve soil tilth, separate nitrogen molecules to make them available to plants and deter plant pathogens. Microorganisms require proteins. Soil also requires oxygen, provided by aeration. Earthworms aerate soil and produce a high-quality fertilizer in their castings. Earthworms also consume proteins. Cotton burrs are around 35 percent protein; so if they are tilled straight into the soil, this protein source is distributed evenly throughout .