AG's compost head-to-head

Editor Garry is conducting his own peat-free trials

- Ruth Hayes

LIKE a lot of AG readers I have been using peat free compost for a while now, but I’m still not entirely sure how comparable it is to peat.

I think there is a doubt in many people’s minds about this: they want to change, they are prepared to pay the extra cost, but what about the results?

The best way for me to answer this for myself is to conduct a test. So using some leftover seed potatoes, I set up 12 containers: six with peat (on the left) and six with peat-free (on the right).

The potato variety is ‘Desiree’, the peat compost is Westlands Jack’s Magic and the peat-free is Westlands New Horizon specialist veg compost.

I can’t claim this test to be scientific, Editor Garry is conducting his own peat-free trials but it is honest and no different to one any AG reader could do. Come June/July we will be able to judge the yield of crop in both number and size of spuds across the six bags of each.