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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Heating up a compost pile

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  • From: Nancy Babbitt <nbabbitt2003@adelphia.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Heating up a compost pile
  • Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 15:24:12 -0400

Paul,

Actually we do have something on how humus is formed, as I posted before.
http://www.soilsecrets.com/SoilEcologyandtheSoilFoodWeb.pdf
http://www.petrik.com/PUBLIC/library/ups.html#humus
1st link doesn't work.

2nd, I read, sort of understand that we know the microbes, some working with others, form the humus. That's why I brought up the idea of SCOBYs and Kefir grains. I was not inquiring about the safety of its use as a food item, silly. I was suggesting the symbiotic culture of more than one micro organism that produces the SCOBY/Grains parallels the formation of humus by another relationship between multiple types of microbes.

Laying the compost materials as a ground cover is called sheet composting.
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/homecompost/methods.html#4
Sheet composting, is most closely what I am speaking of, but not tilling it into the soil, as described in the link. Simply laying the material on top of the soil, as in Ruth Stout's deep mulch method. No Till, also. Removing spent plants by cutting at soil level so as not to disturb the soil. When weeding, removing and laying them on top of the soil to act as a mulch, and compost.
You said
Using finished compost as the cover would simply supply less of what
was originally used as composting ingredients, therefore less for
nature to use, therefore less humus.

Are you advocating not composting, just turning everything under?
I am not really advocating composting or not, I am simply suggesting that gardening or farming by imitating nature may be the key to producing humus in the largest possible quantity. If compost then gets disturbed to add to garden or field, then again there is a risk to losing any humus that has formed, because it will get exposed to the air.
Or
leaving everything on top? As we've seen there are drawbacks to turning
under, one of which is, the more cultivation, the more soil humus is
exposed to air which oxidizes and breaks it down, leaving soil less
moisture absorbent and more prone to leaching of nutrients.
You just stated that oxygen breaks down humus. That is why I suggest not turning a pile to heat it up (oxidize?). Am I correct in believing that if it's necessary to get air into a pile to make it heat up, then it's the oxygen that's allowing the the process that heats up the pile to take place, therefore it is oxidizing the pile?

If I remember correctly (and I may not) that more humus is formed when the plant material is broken down in a wet environment. That implies that it's the anaerobic microbes doing the job.





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