[permaculture] A Golden Opportunity

George Anna Clark esac at laneta.apc.org
Thu Dec 13 12:25:49 EST 2007


Hi everybody,

I've worked in what we call "ecological sanitation" for the past about 
18 years, although now mostly work on my farm. From my experience as 
well as what I've learned from others working and researching the use of 
urine, I'd say it does not have to be diluted.

Urine can burn plants the same as "chemical" fertilizer can, if you 
apply too much. Also, the plants need water, so you can combine the 
urine with water, and thus give the plants both of what they need. If 
you apply too much, but diluted in water, the advantage could be to wash 
out a good amount of the ammonia before harming the plant, but then 
you'd be wasting the ammonia, polluting groundwater (all depends on scale).

I generally apply urine with a watering can, and thus do not want to 
carry around more weight than necessary, so I apply urine straight. 
Water comes either from the rain or through the irrigation system. I 
have also applied urine through the irrigation ("por goteo" this means 
drip, I think) system. It can clog up your emittoers (drippers? little 
holes where the water comes out) and/or your filters attached to the 
pump. It's good to run clean water through later, and even uncap the 
hose to clean those out, otherwise you get formation of struvite... 
which clogs the emitters.

Ammonia evaporates very easily, so if say you're using a watering can, 
it's good to dig a small hole by the plant and then cover it after 
applying. Applying very early, late or on cloudy days also reduces 
evaporation.

I go by the guideline of 1 liter per square meter during the growing 
season of annuals - as it acts like "chemical" fertilizer, you generally 
apply at the same time as you would that (say three times a season for 
corn). However, if I had all the time in the world, I would apply small 
amounts at shorter intervals.

As I have a hectare of small citrus trees and also papaya trees, all I 
have and collect from willing parties goes to those, and to the 
cornfield. At this point I pretty much apply two liters per application 
per small tree, about every 3 months. This is a very un-scientific 
guesstimate of application, so don't base your use on this. The papayas 
could probably benefit from a lot more.

Also, urine is just a part of the fertilization/soil amendment process. 
Adding organic matter is more important for me in the long run, but the 
urine helps a lot during the transition period to organic. (by the way, 
some organic regulations do permit the use of human urine, others don't, 
for example European regulations I think don't- for organic labeling)

I think it's been mentioned in the past that most of the nutrients and 
relatively almost none of the pathogens are found in the urine. The 
reverse is true for excrement. If you're interested, you can find more 
info from the World Health Organization's (WHO) guidelines on using 
human excreta (and wastewater and greywater) in agriculture (from a 
health perspective) useful... 
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/wastewater/gsuweg4/en/index.html 
  Chapter 5 is especially pertinent.

as an interesting aside -for some- for those of us who have urine 
diverting toilets: it is not uncommon for the urine diverter to be 
"contaminated" by faecal material when a person has diahrrea - precisely 
when it'll be full of pathogens).

hope this helps rather than confuse the issue,
george


Bob Waldrop wrote:
> Shouldn't urine generally be diluted before being applied to plants?
> 
> Bob Waldrop, OKC
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Keith Johnson" <keithdj at mindspring.com>
> To: "permaculture" <permaculture at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 9:09 PM
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] A Golden Opportunity
> 
> 
> 
>>I might add that the best time to apply this aged material is just
>>before a rain, especially if you have neighbors in close proximity, due
>>to the intense and lingering aroma.
>>
>>kevin akiva wrote:
>>
>>>keith wrote:
>>>(from SCIENCE NEWS, 2007)
>>>"human urine that had been stored for 6
>>>months...[snip] collected from one individual over the
>>>course of a year could fertilize a 90-square-meter
>>>plot, yielding more than 160 cabbages, the team
>>>calculates. The data indicate that a urine-treated
>>>plot would yield 64 kilograms more cabbage than one
>>>fertilized conventionally."
>>>-----------
>>>
>>>over the years, i've grown to understand that a
>>>commonly considered sign of madness of howard hughes
>>>was actually an ancient practice of true wealth: a
>>>pee-pee saved and yo'urine the cabbage.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>-- 
>>Keith Johnson
>>"Be fruitful and mulch apply."
>>Permaculture Activist Magazine
>>PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
>>(812) 335-0383
>>http://www.permacultureactivist.net
>>http://www.PermacultureTradingPost.com
>>Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way
>>http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower
>>http://www.PowUr.com/KeithJ-SunPower
>>Blog: http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/
>>also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
>>http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html
>>also Association for Regenerative Culture
>>http://www.ARCulture.org
>>also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's 
>>a small world after oil.
>>http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington
>>also Bloomington Permaculture Guild
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