Soybean meal vs. cottonseed meal?

It's me again - hoping we can rev up this forum again in time to get some good organic discussions going before spring hits and we're all too busy planting, weeding and sweating to converse!

I'm considering using soybean meal as a fertilizer this year. My Co-op sells 100 pounds (minimum) for ~$12. NPK is 6.0 - 1.2 - 1.5

Cottonseed meal (which one book said was more expensive than soybean meal) is $6 for a 50 pound bag; its NPK is 7.0 - 2.5 - 1.5

I'm guessing I'll use close to 100 pounds either way, so the price and quantity are moot points. I'm wondering if anyone has any personal opinions, observations or recommendations to share to help me choose one meal over the other?

I've used cottonseed meal for years. Never had any problems with root burning, etc. I frequently use it on leaves to help get them rotting in the spring.

Cotton seed meal...good stuff. It is usually recommended for acid loving plants tho, so I imagine too much use would bring your pH down a bit. (Of course you know this could be remedied by adding a bit of lime, preferably dolomitic.)

I have never purchased soybean meal for use as a plant food. I have planted/grown soybeans in a rotational cycle tho for that specific reason (that being to provide nutrition to the following crop).

By the way, 6 bucks is cheap for that amount of cottonseed meal. Be aware tho, that cotton is one of the few crops that is HEAVILY sprayed with pesticides, so I'm wondering how much of that will be put into your organic garden. The only company I've worked with that offers "organic" cottonseed meal is Hoffman's...you might want to check them out.

Also, both of those products really offer a lot of N, and many many plants don't really need that much. I'd use a high nitrogen product mainly on plants where you want a lot of upper growth (lettuce, greens, onion tops, etc).

I've had great results over the years with alfalfa, you may want to check it out. The cheapest form is as a horse feed. It comes in pellets and you can broadcast it in your garden, then turn it under. (As for me, I tend to go thru a few blenders every other yr! I grind the pellets into powder, add supplements like bone meal, phosphate rock or the like, and make my own food for the plants.) A 50 pound bag might cost $8. However, if you're looking for nitrogen, it doesn't have but about 2%, as compared to the cottonseed and soy products mentioned above. (For those plants that need a high N fix tho I'd go with blood meal anyway...or a food with a combination of alfalfa/blood meal.)
Whoops...getting long-winded. Sorry!

I have used Cottonseed meal but only on the acid loving plants. I have not even seen osybean meal so I can't comment on that. CSM is a little stinky but I've never had it burn my plants.

Horseshoe, we can buy alfalfa MEAL at farm stores here. Don't know the price any more as I haven't bought any for years. We use to make our own goat/cow/horse feeds and used the meal in that.

You're very lucky, EvaMae. I've looked all over the place around here for the meal (alfalfa), but no one carries it. (I think it is too convenient to sell people the "ready made" foods these days.) The meal would certainly save me some time tho.

I can get alfalafa, corn, and soybean as meal from the co-op here.

I gotta say I love my Co-op. It's divided into two stores, and they're located across the street from each other. The "farmers side" is where I find the best deals on fertilizer, cover crop seed, chick grit, inoculant, etc. I only go in the "retail nursery" side when I need pond pump supplies or birdseed.

You must be in Heaven! I'm jealous!

I think Murfreesboro can't be beat: the library has a HUMONGOUS section of gardening books and the co-op is to die for.

And my neighbor lets me take all the rabbit poo and cow manure I want :) What more could a girl want????

Go_Vols, why do you want cotton, soybean, or alfalfa meal when you have all that manure available? I have lots of stable cleanings available too and plan to use all they will give me. Our daughter(Shad's mother) has found a stable not far from her home where she goes to get lots of stall cleanings for her compost/yarden. She has such a small area to garden and raise flowers. Less than 1/4th an acre of mostly hard clay with privacy fenceing all around it. But she has put so much organic material into her gardening areas that it is really producing well for her. She has one or 2 areas left that she is working to improve this summer.
GOD bless you and all the other gardeners/yardeners and grant you a successful growing season.

I could blame it on our fall "rains of biblical proportion" that prevented me from gathering the patties at the appropriate time, but that wouldn't be true. The sad truth is this: I was too lazy to go traipsing through the cow patch in the fall, when I could have applied the manure to the empty beds, and given it all winter to decompose. Now it's getting close to spring planting time (once again), and my poor, neglected garden will need some fertilizing.

I do collect it whenever I can pile it into leaves or the compost heap and let it rot for several months. But alas, I wasn't on the ball last fall :(