Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

You can't extract only the combustible gases without losing nitrogen with it. 
 And you can't put the nitrogen back in the manure.  Further, any time lapse 
betwen the producting of manure and composting it means serious loss of 
nutrients, as studies in Rodale's earlier book on compost showed.  My old 
copy of Compost detailed the figures, something like 50% loss of nutrients in 
a day or two, but I don't have it handy right now to give the exact numbers.

The process of making biogas invariably reduces its nutrient value to the 
soil. Personally, in a fossil fuel-deficient agriculture I'd think it's far 
too valuable for soil building to waste it producing fuel.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not 
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only 
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
   - Aldo Leopold in  Round River, 1933
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 4/28/2006 at 8:24 AM Greg and April wrote:

>I'm going to disagree with this statement.
>
>Nitrogen has no energy value, there for it would be a waste of time to
>remove it for energy purposes.
>
>The most common way to extract energy gasses ( to my knowledge ) would be
>Biogas, which while it may have traces of N, is mostly CO, CO2, CH4, and
>some H2S.    Removing N from the manure, means only you are reducing the
>energy value of the Biogas.
>
>Greg H.
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
>To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 22:10
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Fertilizer use by crop in Brazil
>
>
>>
>> Taking the gases for energy leaves the manure without the nitrogen to
>add
>> to the soil, and without the nitrogen it's hard to compost. Rodale
>> recommended composting manure to preserve its nutrients, then adding it
>to
>> the soil, rather than just spreading it on the fields to lose much of
>its
>> nutrients to the air.