Tao In Agriculture-Natural Farming

[Marblehead]

... but they're slow....

That's what I tell people when talking about the algae in my ponds. I tell them that the snails eat algae but they are pretty slow.

 

(The tadpoles do a great job of eating algae but generally their tadpole stage is rather short so they aren't eating it for long before they get out of the water and go looking for bugs.)

[Stosh]

Wood ash is very alkaline, used in making lye

don't use too much .Its a good source of potassium

Hence the name potash .

The tricky thing about soil additives is that they can mobilize and

Displace one another.

Good is only good , if it supplies what is needed.

 

[Stosh]

Naw I compost it first before I put it into the garden. So Ion -- isn't wood ash a good enough source for calcium? I put that in the compost.... ummm..... Yeah sure we have an electric pump for water.... but still water in the city still needs electricity..... http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/water-needs-electricity-needs-water/?_r=0 yeah just think if people did humanure composting instead of putting good manure into clean water! Crazy. That's why Rome had to build aqueducts - dirtied their river with their humanure..... meanwhile Asia was composting their manure - like good civilized people..... but the Roman empire just continued onwards West so that dirtying up clean water continues today ... crazy.... Discovered another big pumpkin today - hiding out - got my first pumpkin patch!! At least six pumpkins coming in. Gotta check what kind I planted - pie pumpkin or jack-'o'-lantern pumpkin. Either way I'm gonna eat some of it. haha. Got a couple corn plants taken down by grasshoppers - can't catch them by hand. Any suggestions? .... oh well I got my corn spread out and mixed in polyculture - hopefully will confuse the grasshoppers. Gotta kill the Japanese beetles everyday but they're slow....

Check out how they had to clean the green 'water' and 'air' around Beijing for the olympics

[zerostao]

the pumpkin seeds are good too pfl, and the compost toilets i have been around smelled like straw.

cool thread

reminds me how fortunate i am to live in a forest that has had over the years many folks doing some of the ideas presented in this thread. i have planted many things in the woods , at times i even had to find cover - if the army helicopters were roaming about. of course i have planted many vegetables, berries, etc. and always on the look out for ginseng.

me and lazy cloud took a little nature hike the other day 3 1/2 miles, the final 1/2 steep incline and the weather so mild, no sweat....munching on some juicy blackberries was the perfect break.

so this mild weather and very wet summer, fabulous growing conditions for whatever,,,,,,,,,

i know some folks that can wander thru the forest just grazing along. if you wanted to join in on that, you are welcome to do so.

there is plenty

[ion]

Some more on natural farming techniques. This is a little about the live stock care, and I do not have any experience in this area, I hope to gain some soon. I have seen a natural farm piggery in Hawaii and spoken with people who have more knowledge then me about them.

 

Natural farm live stock are said to be healthier and happier then most live stock because they live they live a more natural, stress free life. From what I saw, the pigs were very healthy, mellow and quiet; not squealing, uneasy, pacing or always hungry for food. The piggery itself was stench free which is in accordance with the claim that its livestockeries are emission free.

 

Again, the main factor here is in the application of IMO's (indigenoud micro-organisms. And also what we've touched on here a little in discussing humanure.

 

Natural farms construct the animal housing by building a two foot high square encasing. Like if you drove some steaks in the shape of a square and then put up some strips of alluminum siding for the casing walls.

 

A housing is built on top with a roof designed to allow a certain ammount of light in to keep it natural and comfetable, but also ensures that by the end of each day direct sunlight makes contact with every square inch of the bedding floor.

 

Once the housing and roof ar built, the two foot high casing is filled with certain materiels and innoculated with IMO until it becomes a two foot deep animal bedding. First stripped deciduous sapplings are layed down in the square with IMO and sawdust wood chips. layers of wood chips sawdust and bio cahar with IMO fill the sqauare.

 

This giant slab of organic matter becomes fully colonized with IMO and is a living community that by way of its activity generates heat, a phenomenon known as thermal genesis. It also acts like a forest floor. Animal waiste like urine, spilled and lost food and excrement become food for the bedding and keep it allive. The thriving microbial community makes quick work of the animal waiste. They do not require cleaning which is a bummer for you if you like to use chicken waiste as a fertilizer. You can occaisionaly remove the animal waiste and use it actually, but the whole thing is more effective and functions better if you dont clean it.

 

The waiste helps the beding generate heat via thermal genesis. This will keep animals and poultry warm at night and in the colder months, and along with the sun, keep the temps just right and comfetable during the day.

 

Incedently the IMO will also keep the rootzones of plants a few degrees warmer. In the summer this is good because mulching is good, except that it cools the rootzone down. Mulching keeps the roots warmer in the middle so with IMO and mulch, the roots are warmed year round, or until it gets way too cold, but it can help extend the grow season by thermal genesis, plus by streangthening the plant.

 

When the animal poops on the natural bedding, its immidiately colonized. Do to propper decomposition, methane gas wont be produced and no resulting stench. All the runoff will become food for fungi and bacteria immediately and broken down into component parts and used for growth of the fungi. Just below the excrement, masses of mycelium will form feeding of its nutrients, as the excrement breaks down it will become completely engulfed by mycelium. Mycelial matts like this become food for poultry and pigs. After the stuff is completely broken down and converted into mycelial tissue and a bundle of fiber.

 

Also, because of their diets the animals have healthier digestive systems andd their intestined are reportedly, notably longer by several inches. Chickens arent fed crushed seed with antibiotics. They are given whole rice from the time they are chicks, green grass and have lactic acid bacteria and fermented plant juice incorparate into their diets, that along with the microorganisms, grubs and insects provided by their bedding help supplement regular feeing and keep their diet natural.

 

Pigs get a lot of protein in the natural wild and that is what their bodies have evolved to require. A freind of mine in Hawaii who hunts can tell pigs whove grown up with a lot of fruit/high sugar diets by living around and feedding off of suff on the ground in farmed areas, and a pig that his lived in more natural environments where there arent many fruit trees by looking at their organs. He says the more natural protien fed pigs are healthier and tend to taiste better.

 

Pigs root around the ground and for the most part feed on grubs and fungi. Iusually on farms their givven sugary starchy high carb feeds to fatten them up. They dont generally ge fed maggots worms and grubs or fungus, not directly and there is not much place for them to forage it out.

 

In the natural farming piggeries they munch on decomposing wood chips and saw dust, wads of mycelium and since flies lay eggs in the mycelium and other critters too, the pigs and chickens munch through out the day which also keeps the thing from becoming a mess of flies.

 

Occasionaly another layer of bedding needs to be applied. Probably needs to be watered at that point as well.

 

Generally, live stock are over fed but because of what they are fed they do not have strong digestive systems so they need to be fed more. The feed passes through the systems partially digested which leaves a rotting mess of anerobicly decomposing undigested poteines converting into amines givving off smells like cadavarine, and putricine. By having healtheier stronger digestive systems and incorporating pro-biotics, natural farmed live stock require less feed because it is thouroughly digested. It also has less natural stench and because of the imo floor it decomposes rapidly without givving off methane.

 

Less feed, plus supplementing their diets with fresh cut grass along with the grubs and bugs and the mycelium infeste wood keeps the animals stress free, comfertable and healthy.

Edited August 4, 2013 by ion

[Harmonious Emptiness]

A great documentary about natural farming:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69iVd8WjXNQ

 

can't wait until this goes viral!

[voidisyinyang]

http://familyfarmers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/FFDReadersSpreadsFront-pg6.pdf

 

Family Farm Defender new newsletter - more links to finish the newsletter at http://familyfarmers.org

 

yep...

 

harvested cucumbers - got half a dozen pints of pickles already!!

 

will post garden photos as soon as my first sunflower blooms....

[thelerner]

A big step is to get gardens into the front yard. To start seeing green grass lawns as a bit wasteful. It doesn't have to be extreme, but I started 2, raised vegetable gardens in the my front lawn and now a couple of neighbors are doing likewise.

 

Its a good start and from small seeds, big movements grow, especially when there is so little downside and so much to get out of it. I'm hearing about more 'rogue' chicken coups moving into areas too.

[ion]

Totally agree. So much space and water is wasted on lawns and golf courses. The upkeep of them generally means using copious amounts of water and a high nitrogen chemical fert. Every time they are mowed they loose massive amounts of water over the next few days until a callous forms over the cut. More water is required to keep it green after its mowed. Once the callous forms its only a few more days before it needs to be mowed again. It would take less water to cover the whole yard with a productive garden then it does to care for a lawn.

 

Southern california is a desert, with irrigated water from the rivers of northern california and oregon being squandered on an inedible grass, and huge ammounts are waisted, just running down the gutter in the act of waisting it on the lawns. Imagine if all that was converted into food plants more suitable for the climate.

 

The average yard in southern california is enough space to feed a family that lives there if manged propperly. If everyone in LA grew food plants in their yards there would be more then enough food produced by the citizens of the county to end up with a surplus of food after the feeding the entire counties population, homeless and apt dwellers included. The surplus could be sold by the county and the proceeds invested on equiping every home with solar panels.

 

Think of how much gasoline would not be used importing the food supply in to los angels county. Think about how little money would leave the county into the pockets of corparate farms and and corparation owned or even chain grocery stores. Think about how much less traffic there would be on the road, and how much less oil would be used on large machinery on far away farms if everyone grew a bunch of food in their yards.

 

Atleast replace the inedible lawn grass with wheat or dryland rice or something.

Edited August 12, 2013 by ion

[zerostao]

so nothern california and oregon should quit squandering their water on the southern california desert?

just kidding, kinda

growing grass is good for rebuilding soil but if its gonna have pesticides and heavy fertilizers added then there is no benefit gained.

i do agree sunny southern california needs to being going solar

[voidisyinyang]

yep seeded our front lawn with wheat grass. haha. I was "harvest" the front lawn for some awesome green drinks....

 

ummm... but then I got found out - scandal!!!

[voidisyinyang]

http://fulllotusqigong.blogspot.com/2013/08/wild-milpa-garden-update-plethora-of.html

 

my milpa humanure compost veggie garden photo shoot. enjoy.

[thelerner]

http://fulllotusqigong.blogspot.com/2013/08/wild-milpa-garden-update-plethora-of.html

 

my milpa humanure compost veggie garden photo shoot. enjoy.

Nice garden, impressive growth.

I've planted marigold flowers on my borders and that seems to help against some critters. My neighbor has tied up mothballs in handkerchiefs and has them hanging along her fencing. You can smell it from 5 feet away, but she swears by it and her gardens doing fantastic. Its been a good year here in the Midwest, lots of steady rain.

[voidisyinyang]

yep my sister shared that it was the deer in the morning - 6 a.m.

 

So sleeping out in the tent by the garden tonight and will fortify the deer fence tomorrow...

 

They probably at the tops of the tomatoes also....

 

But I set out a grasshopper trap of molasses.... anyway...

 

I can stop the deer and maybe will eat one this fall. haha.

[voidisyinyang]

o.k. the deer got my biggest pumpkin last night despite me snoring away in the tent.

 

One deer was sleeping by my tent when I went up to go to sleep. haha.I

 

figured I would scare it away for good with my snoring but no!!

 

The FEASTED...

 

well still have 7 good pumpkins left with more coming in - how many jack-o-lanterns do we need anyway?

 

So will fortify the deer fence.

 

I confirmed it's the deer eating the tomatoes also - not grasshoppers - lost a few tomato plants since they had not flowered yet....

 

Doubt they'll flower with the tops eaten off.....

 

But the deer don't touch the tomatoes! Thankfully...

 

so.... Got some free deer manure in the garden now....

 

well I think I'm going to eat a deer this fall. Gotta make a bow or cash out $300 or so....

[ion]

A great documentary about natural farming:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69iVd8WjXNQ

 

can't wait until this goes viral!

Cool vid. I've been meaning to come back and watch and just did. Not exactly about "Natural Farming" in the strict sense of the technique called Natural Farming, bu I appreciate it being included none the less.

 

Very interesting perspective represented in the vid about the contribution of WW1 &WW2 to the disaster that modern farming has become. From having killed off many actual farmers on the front lines, to the chemicals developed, and stockpiled for war purpose to disposing of the surplus as pesticide and fertilizer, comparing that with the Natural farming way it really gives life to this expression of lao tzu-

 

When the world lives in accord with Tao,

Fine walking horses can be retired form plowing the field.

When the world fails to live in accord with Tao,

Even pregnant mares are used as war horses,

And were forced to breed in the battlefield.

 

Another video that is not directly related to natural farming is this one-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ZgzwoQ-ao&feature=share

 

This video shows, in essense, the type of thing I was describing in the op, that Id like to work on establishing.

[ion]

o.k. the deer got my biggest pumpkin last night despite me snoring away in the tent.

 

One deer was sleeping by my tent when I went up to go to sleep. haha.I

 

figured I would scare it away for good with my snoring but no!!

 

The FEASTED...

 

well still have 7 good pumpkins left with more coming in - how many jack-o-lanterns do we need anyway?

 

So will fortify the deer fence.

 

I confirmed it's the deer eating the tomatoes also - not grasshoppers - lost a few tomato plants since they had not flowered yet....

 

Doubt they'll flower with the tops eaten off.....

 

But the deer don't touch the tomatoes! Thankfully...

 

so.... Got some free deer manure in the garden now....

 

well I think I'm going to eat a deer this fall. Gotta make a bow or cash out $300 or so....

Beatiful garden. You and I have a similar style and climate maybe. Nasturtium have gone wild here. I've slept in my garden before and woke up with deer standing right next to me. Apearently our living scare crow tek only works when your awake and upright. I didn't actually have an issue with the deer over eating at that point, no fence either.

 

I was in the harbor the other day and noticed that the restaurant had a motion sensor activated sprinkler jet that shot a180 degree arch when ever a seagull landed on the roof. They were trying to keep the seagulls from aggregating and pooping all over the place.It seems like that would be a good offensive defense where fences aren't available or wanted. They could be easily powered by a 12 volt solar set up.

[ion]

I meant to add to my post about the video which was saying that mustard gas from the war was later used as a pesticide, that something similar was practiced here for years.

 

Agent orange which was used as a defoliant in the vietnam war gave birth to a chemical or two that the logging industry around here and proabably else where, sprays on hardwoods like oak and madrone in/on the public redwood forest, so that they could get rid of all the stuff they didn't want, and just clear cut all the redwood and other conifers like fir etc.

[voidisyinyang]

Beatiful garden. You and I have a similar style and climate maybe. Nasturtium have gone wild here. I've slept in my garden before and woke up with deer standing right next to me. Apearently our living scare crow tek only works when your awake and upright. I didn't actually have an issue with the deer over eating at that point, no fence either.

 

I was in the harbor the other day and noticed that the restaurant had a motion sensor activated sprinkler jet that shot a180 degree arch when ever a seagull landed on the roof. They were trying to keep the seagulls from aggregating and pooping all over the place.It seems like that would be a good offensive defense where fences aren't available or wanted. They could be easily powered by a 12 volt solar set up.

 

 

hmmmm.....

 

yeah I spend my most time watering the garden but I am also killing bugs - I mainly kill the

 

The beetle species Popillia japonica is commonly known as the Japanese beetle.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_beetle

 

Yeah I've been able to hand kill those everyday without too much damage - while I'm watering....

 

o.k. I just took out about half a dozen invasive buckthorn trees to increase the deer fencing.

 

I made a mask out of one of the pumpkins that the deer ate - used it to scare my nephew and niece -- and then they shot arrows at it and smashed it.... good fun.

 

Got a shot of it. HOld on....

 

[voidisyinyang]

So the deer -- a lone renegade - tried to attack the garden last night but I staved it off --

 

So saved the pumpkins!!

 

Just slept in the tent - could hear the deer approaching.

 

My new onion treatment helped....

 

got out of the tent once just to make sure the garden was clear - with flashlight.

 

Lost a stalk of corn - it might have been grasshoppers - just a baby ear half eaten but the stalk was eaten also - so it fell over - didn't see any worms in it...

 

So killed 4 grasshoppers today - pretty good since I only saw 5 of them....

[voidisyinyang]

WWF's 'priority areas' would still allow 25% of the Brazilian soybean harvest to come from newly deforested land.

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_28083.cfm

 

Big Green Enviros rubber stamp Agribusiness deforestation of virgin rainforest for monoculture commodities!

[voidisyinyang]

http://fulllotusqigong.blogspot.com/2013/08/microclimates-in-milpa-garden.html

 

Microclimates in the Milpa Garden - my new blogpost on the garden with new photos

[ion]

I just got the Korean Natural Farming handbook back that I loaned out a few months ago. Most of the contents I pretty much got down but I have not gotten to fermenting my own excrement yet, so I wasn't sure of the process that master Cho described. Since a lot of the content of this thread is about poop, I thought I'd transcribe a bit from Cho's book.

 

Forgive the Korean accent. There was only a few of these that were printed in English, although they have a new edition that is a little better. This section is pretty easy tounderstand, but there are other sections of the book that misuse certain words, so if you are not watchful it can be misleading or hard to understand.

 

 

 

Cho says-

" (1) What is HLF?

This particular liquid fertilzer is made from fermented human excrements. Human excrements are outstanding fertilzer rich in nutrients compared to animals excrements. Human bowel was utilized in farms some time ago. However, it is very rare today due to problems including parasites. And if human bowel is used byitself, the biggest problem is the concentration. Human excrements are very strong that the crops are poisoned by them. In other words, they provide excessive nitrogen. The excrements also do not ferment well: they rather corrode.

You can fix this problem by fermentation. Fermentation rids parasites and converts indigestable substances into digestable ones. And by using dilution there is no problem with concentration.

30-40 years ago all orchard farms used human excrements; they produced excellent fruits. Now human feces are a big waste and pollutant. Instead of spending money for expensive fertilizers, should we not look back at converting waste into resources?

(2) How to make HLF

1. Dig a pit on the ground with adequate width and depth. Inside of a greenhouse is good because higher temperature accelerates the process. Sunny or shade are both okay.

2. Spread plastic sheet on the floors and walls of the pit.

2. Put human excremets in the pit.

4. Add water half the weight of excrements (for example 600 kg excrements:300 kg water). Currently, the height of the ingrediants should fill 1/3 of the pit).

5. Add 60kg of fermentation starters. For starters, use yeast cultivated on rice bran.

6. After 4 or 5 days fermentation should be complete. The smaller the air bubbles, the better the quality. Use stick to stir the material once in a while to promote fermentation.

7. After fermentation, fill hole with water (1,800Kg),.It will take one more week to mature. After maturity, the liquid will be dark brown and unfermented solids will surface.

(3) How to use HLF

Dilute 30 to 50 times before use. Spray on soil or leaves. Results are better when used with IMO or FAA. HLF contains a lot of phosphoric acid; use it accordingly. It also has minerals and salt those are good for crops."

 

.So thats it. IMO, and FAA are two of the inputs we use in NF. IMO is indigenous micro organisms. IMO is basicly the foundation of NF and what really works the soil and makes nutrients available, and plants strong and resistant.

FAA is fish amino-acids. Sort of like fish emulsion, its made from fish meat and waste products like the intestines etc.

I would want to scale this down quite abit for the first go round, maybe a 5gal bucket for starters, that way, if something goes wrong, I'm not stuck with 600kg of my own shit.

I think where he says to use "yeast cultivated on rice bran", that would translate to basicly using a sour dough starter, either made on wheat or rice bran.

Where he says -"Fermentation rids parasites, and converts indigestable substances to digestable ones" I believe that means there is locked up phosphoros in the poop that gets unlocked by the micro-organisms.

Most soils already have adequate P also, but plants can't uptake it because its locked up because phosphoric acid bonds easily to many things, so we use lactic acid bacteria and yeasts, along with IMO to unlock soil nutrients that are already there. Often times a soil analisis will tell you that you have a P deficancy, so farmerrs add more P and this creates run off problems and more nutrient lock up.

So I think that might be the case with the phosphoric acid in poop as well. Although when he says its high in P, that does not necessarily mean that it is as high as 0-30-0, it means there is an adequate ammount that it could be used as an N-P fertilizer instead of just N. Kinda like blood meal.

[voidisyinyang]

korea is obsessed with fermentation to keep foods preserved over the colder winters there.

 

seems like composting would be easier - no need for plastic.

 

anaerobic breakdown also releases methane.

 

 

If you compost using the static method (you don't turn/aerate your pile), there is a very high likelihood that your pile goes through aerobic, and anaerobic, cycles while it is breaking down. For instance, when your pile is first built, it will contain lots of oxygen, and aerobic bacteria and microbes will proliferate; however, as these microbes increase in number, they use up a lot of oxygen in your pile. As the oxygen levels in your pile begin to drop, the conditions start to favor anaerobic bacteria. Eventually, these conditions will reverse again before your compost is completely cured.

 

 

I would agree with this....

 

http://www.compostjunkie.com/anaerobic-composting.html

 

yeah so they say a year to complete anaerobic composting.

 

This is amazing since the Humanure Compost book using aerobic says to wait 2 years!

 

But he's just being super careful.

 

I think a year for aerobic composting without turning it - which means it will go anaerobic also - this is good enough.

Edited September 28, 2013 by pythagoreanfulllotus

[ion]

The bacteria and yeasts in a sour dough starter, per Cho's instructions, are neither anerobic or aerobic as a rule, but can thrive in either conditions. The method he described is aerobic decomposition. It is not fermented in an enclosed container, and it is stirred regularly, partly to introduce fresh oxygen.

 

Further decomposition with IMO 3, (an aerobic biological complex abstracted from a local forest soil ecology),would have this stuff fully decomposed and ready for plant up-take in a period of 2 weeks (as opposed to 5 days as Cho says)in my opinion.

 

IMO breaks down poop without methane production being a problem, just like I described in the piggeries and chicken coups; there are no waise emissions or run offs using Natural Farming methods.

 

In an aerobic environment, the lactic acid bacteria and yeasts would produce enzymes that broke down virus RNA, and out competed any parisites to extinction.

 

From my own pool of knowledge outside of what I know from Master Chos methods, the bacteria and yeasts in also break down toxic compounds accumulated in the guts and bowels of humans such as pesticide compounds from consuming market food.

 

The intestines and colon are anerobic environments, and so its healthy to eat these cultures as well because like I said, they are both aerobic and anerobic, but my point is actually that because the poop is decomposed under aerobic conditions, the pathogens and parasites from the colon in the poop are not capable of thriving in the decomposition vessel where as the added culture will thrive, the pathogens die off and their bodies are also decomposed further.

 

The fermentation process is an enhanced but natural process done by the natural players from nature.The yeasts and bacteria used in NF are indegenous to the environmet they are used in and so are also thus within thier ideal conditions where as the pathogens from the gut are not.

 

Fermentation is probably a misleading term because as it did with you it draws up images and reasonings that are not true to mind.

 

First of all, people all over the world, in both warm and cold environments have been fermenting food for a variety of reasons. Preserving them in the cold is not a popular one, because cold winters usually equates to easier to store foods for longer periods. Preserving them where it is warm and prone to rot is a popular one, or preserving them in general. It is also probably true that there have been less then conscious reasons for fermenting foods, that reason being because it is incredibly good for you to do so because of the fermentation organisms they contain. They are probiotic foods teeming with bacteria and yeast that rid the guts of parasites and pathogens, producing an environment that promotes healthy bacteria and yeaast.

 

With natural farming methods, the cycle of enhancing the soils inner potential without tilling is to first start adding lactic acidd bacteria and yeasts to the soil because of their ability to thrive in both aerobic and anerobic conditions. What happens is that they penetrate deep into the soil and chemicly prepare the soil for good organisms to thrive, but what they also do is cause anerobic soils to bbecome aerorated and hummusy. This paves the way for aerobig fungi and actino bacteria to colonize the are, while all the anerobic bacterias go dormant.

 

Things like damping off syndrome just dont happen. You can mist your sprouts and they wont damp off.

 

It should be added, that virtually all pathogens thrive in anerobic conditions and not aerobic.

 

Compost is produced and used in Natural farming, but cho appearently feels HLF is more effective then composting.

 

I had mentioned earlier about people saying "why not just compost or use mulch?". Im a huge fan of both, but IMO is different, and where people are amazed by the biological composition of their composts, IMO itself compared to compost or mulch is like the difference between water and a nutrient solution; infact IMO will further decompose your compost and will reduce your mulch to topsoil within the season, all the while attracting benificials like an enhanced population of earth worms, (if you have them in your locale).

 

IMO is also different then soils that have been innoculated under controled conditions with a labratory grown mychorizal culture that wont stand a chance in nature, because like the name says, they are endogenous and have evolved over eons to the quirks and regularoty of your growing environmnet, and so rather then die off after a short lived effect, they become established and thrive on.

 

As a farmer who creates his own resources, it would be in-efective of me to devote my compost to a poop decomposer if it took 2, or even 1 year to both make, and then like wise to decompose.

 

Time itself is not the big killer of parasites/pathogens. In compost its the tempreture produced, and the ammount of time spent in those extreme conditions that kill them off. Since Humanure requires the excretion itself to generate the heat, there are lapses in time where the heat is not present, and so it takes a year to fully decompose the last load you added, to the pile that it took 1 year to make.

 

With bacterial decomposition, it is not thermal death that over comes the enemy, but acids and enzymes that break down fibers and compounds in nature, are creating an incredibly in hospital environment, (to the enemy), that actualy have the ability to decompose, thats what they are for.

 

I should also add, that in my visualtion of the process Cho describes, Id use a 55 gallon drum, or rubbermaid type trash can instead of a plastic lined pit. Also, if you dont feel like stiring and you have a power source, you can run a fish pump through the barrel that will ensure an aerobic environement.

Edited September 30, 2013 by ion