Peat Free Compost 2023

I’m not even considering peat free (sorry Planet!) until I can no longer buy compost with peat in it.
Lost so many plants and seedlings when I tried to do the “right thing”.
Hopefully the manufacturers will have perfected a mix that works for us home gardeners by then.

The main issues I see with peat free are green waste compost and wood fibre. With green waste compost it's the potential for weed killer contamination if the batch is not tested properly, with plastic contamination a secondary concern. With the wood fibre, its made from virgin wood, so when it gets wet it will start to decompose which leads to the nitrogen being tied up and plants being unable to use it. You will have a similar problem with non-composted bark. Adding extra nitrogen is simple to do yourself, but when you buy a bag of compost you shouldn't have to add more fertiliser straight out of the bag, especially when the packaging says it will feed for up to 6-8 weeks. 

There are several brands aimed at professional growers which they are using with excellent results. From what I've read they have to play around with the watering and fertilising schedule a bit at first, but once they've got that dialled in the plant growth and health is no different to peat based composts. 

Here are two interesting videos where a professional grower trials a few popular peat-free composts, including a Sinclair professional one. In the first video he is very disappointed in the New Horizon, but in the second video he adds a bit of Osmocote fertiliser to it and gets similar results to the peat compost. So I think the problems people have been having with New Horizon and other wood fibre based composts could just be a lack of nitrogen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFp9Z5EwSuI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snGTavFpqnw