[permaculture] A Golden Opportunity
David
david at h4c.org
Thu Dec 13 15:28:18 EST 2007
Friends,
I've been lurking for a while now on the list, and will start posting
more as time permits. While I hope to learn (take) and already have, I
would also hope to offer. While I have spent the last decade immersed in
issues which have no relationship to permaculture, I am the author of
The Complete Biogas Handbook (www.completebiogas.com: the site is being
revamped and will be up in a few days), co-author of Wind and
Windspinners (about wind-electric systems), founder of earthmind, a
non-profit corporation that was active for a few years in the early
1970's, etc. and yada yada.
Right now I am working on changing my 20 acres in the Wilmette Valley of
Oregon (about 20 mi S of Portland) into an organic farm. I've got 11
acres tillable, with the rest in pasture and woods.
I wanted to mention this, then make a short comment on the specific
question with regard to the need to dilute urine before putting it on
plants. George Anna has offered a really sterling resource in the WHO
manuals, compared to which my contribution does not even glimmer, but
here it is:
It should be clear that it makes a great deal of difference what plants
one is pouring the urine on. The grasses-- which include corn, for
example-- developed in an eco niche where they were often drenched in
urine, and indeed covered with manure. Part of what makes these plants
thrive, in fact, as some experience with intensive grazing shows (see
for example articles in The Stockman Grass Farmer
<http://stockmangrassfarmer.net/>), is sort of counter intuitive: let
them be chewed, trampled, and heaped with excrement and urine-- within
reason, for brief periods and only occasionally, as would happen on the
prairie-- and the sward responds by growing strong. The incidence of
noxious weeds (and please don't make me define that term) is reduced,
and plant diversity increases. Other plants such as many ornamentals,
most cacti, or certainly epiphytes
<http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/epiphyte> such as some of the orchids,
would not do well if presented with the golden opportunity (to echo the
thread title).
I'm not arguing, by the way, that any of us must or should or would be
wise to do this or that. Rather, I'm simply offering a few tidbits which
I feel reasonably confident are correct and true, and leaving it at
that. YMMV. Use, ponder, or ignore as is appropriate for you in your
particular ecosystem.
George Anna Clark wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I've worked in what we call "ecological sanitation" for the past about 18 years...
>
> ...you can find more info from the World Health Organization...[at]
> http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/wastewater/gsuweg4/en/index.html
>
> Bob Waldrop wrote:
>
>> Shouldn't urine generally be diluted before being applied to plants?
>>
d.
--
David William House
503-678-5162 (home)
503-206-1001 (cell)
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" www.completebiogas.com
"Make no search for water. But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in Delight of Hearts, p. 77)
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