Hi A.D. Karve and Others who've expressed interest,
I've gotten a number of requests for more information so will reply to
the list even though it may be considered slightly off topic.
I've enjoyed reading the posts about the sugar and biology. It is true
that there is a whole lot more to soil and plant nutrition than simple
NPK. It is also true that much of what is going on is still not
discovered, but we can start with the bit we do know.
I've been involved with quite a bit of trialing with soil microbiology
and I try to always look at soil chemistry tests along with the soil
biology. It is not uncommon to detect changes in soil chemistry when
biology is stimulated even before you can register any effect on a soil
biology test. For example, a farmer sprayed our vermicompost based tea
along with some foliar nutrients on a carrot once before planting then
on the foliage 4 times in the crop cycle. A total of about 34 gallons
of compost tea were applied per acre during the growing season. In the
end, we saw calcium improvements by soil test that were greater than if
a whole tonne of lime had been added. There is no way the 34 gallons
could possibly have added the calcium directly. The only conclusion is
that the biology was stimulated which in turn solubilized the calcium.
The carrots also contained more nutrients than the control carrots so
not only was the soil enriched, but there were also more minerals in the
crop that was removed.
There are many ways to assess the microbiology in the soil. Many
methods deal with trying to extract the biology and multiply it on a
plate then count colonies. This system has serious limitations since
many of the organisms will not grow on an agar plate medium. We use a
direct assay as pioneered by Soil Foodweb. Any of the direct assays
have limitations too because there can be significant shifts in soil
biology in a relatively short period of time. There are also life forms
that may not be picked up in a direct assay if they are dormant at the
time the sample is taken. No system is perfect, but I believe the
direct assay is probably better than the plate count system. Soil
Foodweb has an expensive assay that will give total numbers but there is
also a much more simple way to do it yourself with a more basic
microscope and get a good idea of what is going on. This second method
works best in house when you are wanting to compare your treatments
provided you have a microscope with good optics and some basic knowledge
of the biological groups within the soil.
I've worked with compost teas, vermicompost, compost, and soil biology
testing in live settings growing crops for a number of years. There are
a number of physical identifiers to indicate the biological activity of
a given soil. These include the crumble structure of the soil,
earthworms and other visible biological signs, and smell along with what
crops are thriving and what happens when the soil becomes water logged.
Often these indicators can be the most beneficial from a farmer's
perspective, but if you need to have data to sell a product or justify a
decision to compost with earthworms, then testing is going to be
required or people may think you are just trying to sell "snake oil".
There are two Soil Foodweb labs in the US, two in Canada, one in
Australia, one in New Zealand, one in South Africa, and there used to be
one in Mexico. I don't know if the Mexican lab is still going or not.
There may be a lab in Europe too.
On the topic of vermicomposting, earthworms are a great way to compost,
but they are livestock and as such have very specific temperature, feed,
and oxygen requirements. If you want to compost with worms in order to
sell your compost for more money, I think you'll be disappointed since
it can be a lot of work and the cost to set up can be substantial. We
sell both the worms and the vermi-compost and can make it work utilizing
the revenue from both streams, but I know of a lot of people who've
gotten into vermicomposting thinking it was going to be a silver bullet
only to be disappointed when something went wrong and the worms all died
or disappeared. I always suggest (even to those who want to buy our
worms) that people start small and learn the basics small scale before
buying a large quantity of worms.
I hope this helps but if there are further questions, don't hesitate to ask.
Tim Livingstone
On 11/16/2010 1:31 PM, Anand Karve wrote:
Dear Mr. Livingston,
There are a lot of effects on plants that can be ascribed to growth
promoting substances. I had observed, for instance that blue green
algae cause enhanced growth in almost all species of plants, and not
just in rice. A small test in which seeds were germinated in the
culture filtrate of blue-green algae indicated that the blue-green
algae produced plant growth promoting substances. But the plant growth
substances can also be produced by the micro-organisms in the soil
under the influence of certain products like vermicompost. To give an
analogy, the active ingredient of whisky is not present in the oats
but it is present in the fermented product, because it is the yeast
that produces it. Since we do not know what we are looking
for, growing plants and recording their growth and biomass is the only
reliable method.
Yours
A.D.Karve
On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 8:12 PM, Tim Livingstone
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
Hi Alex,
If you contact me off list, I can give you some ideas. Where are
you located?
Tim
On 11/15/2010 9:32 PM, Alexander Eaton wrote:
Dr Karve and all,
Could someone suggest a good test for measuring microbes, enzymes, or
other indicators of living soils? We are trying to test the quality
of the fertilizers we are producing, and we feel the standard measures
of NPK are insufficient to fully characterize the benefits of
digestate added to soil or compost. Any suggested methods to this end
would be helpful.
Best,
Alex
On 11/15/10, Anand Karve<[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]>
wrote:
Dear Theo,
It is an accepted principle in agriculture that there is direct and
positive correlation between the population densiy of micro-organisms in the
soil and soil fertility. One applies organic matter to the soil because one
wants to increase the number of microbes per unit of soil. This is best done
by applying a small quantity of non-composted, high calorie organic
material to the soil and not by applying predigested and composted organic
material to an agricultural field. You can test this just by applying a
couple of grams of sugar to a square meter of soil and you would notice,
that with such a small quantity of an organic carbon source, the microbial
population in the soil increases about 500 times, within 24 hours of
application. Thus, when a suitable organic carbon source is available to
the microbes in the soil, the microbes multiply their numbers, taking up the
necessary minerals directly from the soil minerals. Plants cannot take up
the soil minerals because the soil minerals have a very low solubility. But
the microbes can absorb them even from solutions having minerals in PPM or
PPB concentration. When the organic carbon source has been exhausted, the
microbes die due to starvation, releasing the minerals sequestered in their
body. These minerals, now in the form of enzymes, co-enzymes, proteins etc.
are highly water soluble, and they become available to the plants. Literally
thousands of farmers in the region of India where I live, have started to
use this technique. They apply either 25 kg sugar or 125 kg green leaves per
hectare to their field, once every two or three months, and get good
yields. It amounts to soil mining, but just one meter thick layer of soil
contains enough minerals to support agriculture for 25,000 years. And new
soil is continuously being formed due to geological processes. So, don't
worry that the minerals in the soil would ever get exhausted.
Yours
A.D.Karve
On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 8:23 PM,<[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Not to answer this, but to expand a bit.....
Is there documentation backed by laboratory research that tells the
"fertilizer values" of the digested solid wastes resulting from methane
production? Would the vermiculture add to those nutrient values?
Thanks.
Referring to the question about vermiculture. Why should you want to
use vermiculture when you have already digested solid waste that could
be applied to the fields directly? With raw manure, I could see the
advantage, as you would get a somewhat dry, concentrated and easy to
apply organic fertilizer, without the acidifying effect of manure. Is it
the reduction in volume that is an advantage? Or are people used to
using vermiculture organic fertilizer and do not know the usage of
digested solid waste? Maybe somebody has some thoughts about this. Do
you apply liquid waste to the composting heaps (the liquids which
remains when separating digistate into solids and liquids?) to keep it
moist?
Thanks
Theo Bijman
Matt and listers, Hello,
There are two projects in South India doing vermiculture of digestate:
SKG Sangha and VK-Nardep that have been highlighted on the list, as they
both won Ashden Awards. There are videos available for both projects,
although the one for VK-Nardep is a sequence of still photographs taken
at the time of the judge's visit.
The Ashden Award links are:www.ashdenawards.org/winners/skgsangha
<http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/skgsangha>
<http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/skgsangha> and
www.ashdenawards.org/winners/vknardep
<http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/vknardep>
<http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/vknardep> . A direct link to SKG
Sangha is:www.skgsangha.org <http://www.skgsangha.org/>
<http://www.skgsangha.org> <http://www.skgsangha.org/> and to
VK-Nardep is:vknardep.org <http://vknardep.org/> <http://vknardep.org>
<http://vknardep.org/> .
Regards,
David Fulford
On 11/11/2010 01:33, Matt Lorig wrote:
There was a project mentioned on the list (maybe a year or two ago)
about a vermiculture project using the digestate from a biogas plant. I
think it was in India. I think they were using sawdust to soak up the
water and composting it for a period of time and then introducing the
worms. I can't find the link now. Does anyone remember what I'm
talking about? Or does anyone have any info about vermiculture combined
with biogas?
Matt Lorig
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]>
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*Please change my email address in your records to:[email protected]
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for more information about digestion, see
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***
Dr. A.D. Karve
President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
*Please change my email address in your records to: [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> *
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for more information about digestion, see
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and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
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Canada
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