500 Horn Manure
There are 2 main biodynamic preparations , the so-called “spray” ones: 500 and 501 , obtained from two different substances.
The preparation 500 or Horn Manure was developed by Rudolf Steiner personally and stimulates and harmonizes the humus formation processes in the soil.
The use of 500 heavily, in spring and autumn, guides all the microbiological processes of the soil, increasing its production yield.
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Preparation
It is made up of fresh cow manure without the addition of straw or other plant material (the so-called "fatta"). This must be fresh, of excellent quality and freshly harvested, produced by cows fed on polyphytic pastures cultivated biodynamically; the manure must be autumnal, produced by browsing the meadows at the vegetative awakening: that is, it must be a living material .
Good cow horns (not bull horns) should be chosen and filled with milk in autumn. Then, once the best site, the most fertile, with the best exposure has been carefully chosen, the horns are buried.
The first months are very delicate: when microbial activity begins inside the hole, the humid phase must be carefully monitored, avoiding excesses that can disturb the humid balance and therefore the transformation process. If it rains too much, the burial site is covered with a tarpaulin. The horns remain buried throughout the winter; it is very important that they remain exposed to intense winter cold, which favors a more intense transformation in the nature of the humic matter.
In late spring the preparation is ready. We dig, dig up and empty the horns: the manure is now completely transformed into humus, its volume has been reduced by half and it has completely lost the smell of manure, of manure, acquiring noble, very fine, earthy smells , of undergrowth.
As soon as the horns are emptied and the horn-manure is placed in the copper and peat box, heating occurs in the humic mass, a symptom of the reactivation of the fermentation activity which continues for about a month.
At this stage the preparations from the heap are added by simply making holes in the mass of horn-manure inside the container.
How to use
Dynamizationand spreading
If you take 200 grams (dosage per hectare), they should initially be dissolved in cold water (10 - 12 degrees) and gradually brought, adding a little hot water at a time, to a temperature of approximately 28 degrees. This is because 500 is a concentrate of microorganisms that must be reproduced (they require hot water) without suffering a thermal shock.
At this point, 40 liters of non-chlorinated water at a temperature of 30-32 degrees are taken and the 500 is poured in and the dynamization begins, which can be carried out by hand or with appropriate dynamizers. Dynamization carried out by hand consists of turning the solution with an arm or a stick. You need to create a vortex and once you reach the bottom (in 20 seconds) stop the direction of rotation and it energetically reverses in the opposite direction creating chaos, i.e. the boiling of the water. The dynamization must last exactly one hour. In this way the microbial activity present at the beginning is substantially reproduced after an hour.
Once the dynamization has been completed, the preparation must be distributed on the ground as soon as possible (within one to two hours at most). It should be distributed in spring and autumn on wet soil or near rain. The distribution must take place in the afternoon, with the use of backpack pumps spraying the liquid roughly on the ground, walking you must be able to cover a band of 5-6 meters on the right and 5-6 meters on the left. On the backpack pump, all filters must be removed and the outlet nozzle must be enlarged up to 2.5 millimeters.
