North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Jim Fruth" <jfruth@tds.net>]

Science News Online, Sept. 22, 2007
(http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070922/note15.asp)

Web Special: You fertilized with what?

Janet Raloff

Talk about your all-natural fertilizer with a high yuck factor. Researchers
in Finland have just published results of a study showing that farmers can
substitute human urine for conventional fertilizer and get a notable
increase in cabbage yields. Moreover, the crop's taste was at least as
acceptable as that of the greens fertilized conventionally.

Surendra K. Pradhan of the University of Kuopio and his colleagues grew
cabbages using a conventional fertilizer, human urine that had been stored
for 6 months, or no soil amendments at all. In an upcoming issue of the
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the researchers report that
urine treatment yielded cabbages that were bigger and carried fewer germs
than either other approach yielded.

Although the nutrient content of urine depends on what someone has eaten,
analyses of the urine used in these experiments showed that its nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium content was comparable to that of commercial
fertilizer.

Sauerkraut made from cabbages cultivated in the three ways had slightly
different flavors, according to taste panelists, but were equally well
liked.

Urine 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, and 256 kg more
than an unfertilized crop would.

Earlier this year, the Kuopio scientists reported that cucumbers similarly
benefit from the use of urine over conventional fertilizer.

__._,_.___