Anyone ever fertilize pasture with miracle grow?

Totally wrong.
In most states the application of manure is closely regulated and part of a plan that must be submitted to the DNR.
Even with 6 goats and a couple of beefers I must have a manure management plan on file with the DNR in WI. Even farms that graze and keep the animals outside year round are being included as of last year. The program they hand out most definitely includes the fertilizer value of the manure. It's called Snap Plus Nutrient Management Software.....
And a lot of folks don't have cows anymore, sold em out and now they crop the ground. The big dairies know the value of their manure and apply it as a part of their total nutrient plan. They keep it on the land they own.
I have never known a farmer that doesn't realize the value of manure or use it as part of his fertilizer plan. The only people I have seen give away manure is horse owners or small homesteader types that can't be bothered to clean out a barn.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Anything you do to the soil feeds the plant. Organic methods and such are no magic bullet, they have to be redone every year, manure needs to be applied every year. The act of growing a crop removes nutrients from the soil, it doesn't really matter how they get there, the plant uses them no matter what.
Excess applications of good old manure can result in buildups of salts just as overapplication of commercial fertilizers can. It can also result in overabundances of the P and N and when that washes into the surface waters it can be a problem.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

I just bought a 50 pound bag of time release 12-12-12 with trace minerals and it was up to $16 this year. It was $11 last year. So fertilizer is going up.

Although, it is a lot cheaper if I buy it in bulk and rent the spreader tractor from the farm fertilizer place. I don't do that anymore since I am not applying to pasture. I spot fertilize trees and individual plants.

If it is pasture and you want cheap, you can simply spread sulfate of ammonia. That'll green your grass up really nicely.

I've never seen any indication that Miracle grow is any better than any other fertilizer. Except they have an efficient advertising program. Advertising doesn't seem to affect how my plants grow.

Manure and compost are great to add to the soil. I add all I can get my hands on, but it is hard to come by and expensive to truck in. An entire years' worth of composting at my family gives me a couple of cubic feet of good compost. Gonna take along time to do 5 acres at that rate.

Ok I will clarify: Most people around here won't fool with manure. There are many "farmers" in this area that have been handed down family land and keep 10 to 30 cows on it as extra income. If we have a manure management requirement I haven't heard of it and I know for a fact that these other locals are not managing their manure in any way except for letting it fall out the back end of the cow wherever it happens to be standing. Even if it falls out inside a barn (if there is a barn) they generally don't fool with it. Over time the cows track it out.

When it's time to fertilize the hayfields they go to the co-op and buy fertilizer.

It seems crazy to me, they are bringing home fertility in the form of hay, and wasting it. Of course a lot of it is deposited around the pastures but a lot of it is also in the trees and barns. I'm glad this area isn't representative of other places if things are as you say.

Someone upwind from the farm today was spreading lagoon cow manure. Actually smelled halfway nice since it was a winter accumulation and didn't have a long hot fermentation. If I had wanted to, I could have had one pass over my garden last fall due to returning favors. Other than that, I don't think that there's a farmer in the county who would give me a much as a pickup load. Window for spreading is short in both spring and fall. In spring, have to get it on before planting. In fall, have to get it on before freeze-up. Ain't like the old days of spreading whenever the ground was dry enough for the spreader wheels to get traction.

Martin

Cow lagoon? Most cattle around here are raised on pasture, only the hogs and turkeys have lagoons, and it stinks.

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I see a very dark cloud on America's horizon,
and that cloud is coming from Rome.
- Abraham Lincoln

We're just a bit short on pasture from October to May. We have dairies up here which don't have a milk cooler as no cooler built big enough to handle 500-1,000 head. They just park 2 tankers at the milk house. Every dairy farm in the state has to have a sealed storage if there are over so many animals. Some farms lay out miles of at least 8" flexible tubing through ditches and culverts to get it to another farm several sections away. Second pump driven off tractor PTO about half way to give it added boost. Manure haulers are mostly in the 5,000-8,000 gallon range and I know of one dairy which has three 8,500s. Their route is always a one-way loop since two of them can't meet on the town roads. That's a lot of manure!

Martin

Nitrogen fertilizer components from the "chemical" forms pretty much come from natural gas= petroleum, correct? Is anyone who uses serious quantities for crops trying to "time the market" storing serious quantities, say of ammonium sulfate, if natural gas prices seem to have dipped, as a hedge against future price inflation? This seems to be about the peak of "peak oil" right now although possibly the fracking of gas may extend relatively cheap nitrogen availability for a while yet. I don't have any acreage or even in-ground garden space, but just to be sure of having a couple years' nutrients for extensive container or raised-bed vegetables I have made a point of trying to stock up on the Miracle-Gro stuff or its generic equivalents like the Ace Hardware label *if* on sale much more cheaply than normal pricing. I've also amended the soil with local composted horse manure but got put off by the last local source blowing off meeting me for an agreed pick-up of his bagged product. Seems reasonably efficient to use the water-soluble stuff on limited plants localized to large pots for application. (Best price I've seen this spring was W-M 5 lb M-Gro for just under $8.)