This article might help--it discusses the management of cedar shavings in compost. http://www.farmwest.com/book/export/html/894 Interestingly, he focuses on the issue of nitrogen depletion.
You might even give the author a call. He identifies the particular chemical compound--tropolone--responsible for the decay resistance of cedar. (One of the endnotes refers to "phenolics".) If that is the same chemical responsible for the phytotoxic effects of cedar, perhaps there is a method of testing for it, or a technique for binding it up or flushing it out.
As an aside, I only recently realized that there's a whole body of extremely useful research literature coming out of the ag schools. I now routinely add the words "university" or "extension" to my google searches to get right to the good stuff. Whoda thought that people would get paid to write papers on whether blueberries transported at 33 degrees have statistically significantly longer shelf lives than those transported at 40? But they do.
The Permanent Garden
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Re: The Permanent Garden
Last edited by Maddy on Wed Oct 12, 2016 1:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: The Permanent Garden
I've done some nosing around the internet, and it seems that there's quite a bit of disagreement about whether cedar shavings are harmful. A fair number of commercial compost producers routinely use cedar shavings in their mix.
One of the issues that seems to come up frequently with the addition of wood products to soil is an alteration in pH. This seems to be even more true with cedar. pH is something you could easily test for yourself. I've seen kits for about $5 in garden stores. Fixing pH problems is easy.
One of the issues that seems to come up frequently with the addition of wood products to soil is an alteration in pH. This seems to be even more true with cedar. pH is something you could easily test for yourself. I've seen kits for about $5 in garden stores. Fixing pH problems is easy.