[Digestion] Digestate comparison to liquid worm castings

[Alexander Eaton]

Hi Wayne,

We recently were given lab results that showed that our biol (digestate)
was a much better product than liquid worm castings in macro-nutrients,
micro-nutrients and in biological activity.  Regarding macro-nutrient (NPK)
comparison with inorganics, biol will generally have lower percentages, but
a much high percentage of the nutrients are in a form that is available for
plant up-take.  Another factor that allows us to have IMPROVED harvests
with biol over chemical fertilizers in the first year is that soil with
constant chemical fertilizer use us essentially sterile, without a healthy
biological activity that converts soil nutrients into forms that plants can
utilize (Dr. Karve of this list has argued on various occations that ALL
soils have all the nutrients necessary for healthy plant growth, and it is
just a matter of have the biological activity necessary to convert the
minerals to forms that plants can use).  When we add the biol, the bacteria
in the biol and the bacteria in the soil we activate begin to convert macro
and micro nutrients that have accumulated in the soil, so the plants get a
large boost.  We feel that NPK is a very dated way to look at fertilization
of soils, and biol has benefits that include: micro-nutrients, enzymes,
amino acids, active biological components, useful macro-nutrients, among
other things.  These days, the fertilizer benefits of small digesters is
the driving force behind our program, with the gas as interesting bonus,
whereas the program started with the reverse idea.

Best,

Alex

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Wayne Zschech <
waynezschech at calvarychapel.com> wrote:

> G'day All!
>
> I know that the quality of the liquid digestate as a fertiliser depends on
> the type of feedstock ingredients. However, as a generalisation (or with
> specifics) how does our liquid digestate compare to liquid worm castings?
> Is the digestate even close to the 'potency' of the worm castings?  Also
> when comparing the standard NPK values of inorganic fertiliser is there a
> rule of thumb that allows digestate to 'compete' with them even though the
> NPK values are much higher in the inorganic fertiliser?  This will help me
> in talking to farmers when talk about the benefits of our product as
> instead of fresh manure or chemicals.
>
> Blessings,
> Wayne
>
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-- 
Alexander Eaton
Sistema Biobolsa
IRRI-Mexico
RedBioLAC

Mex cel: (55) 11522786
US cel: 970 275 4505

alex at irrimexico.org
alex at sistemabiobolsa.com

sistemabiobolsa.com
www.irrimexico.org
www.redbiolac.org
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