[Digestion] Digestate comparison to liquid worm castings (Alexander Eaton)

[Anand Karve]

Dear List,
anaerobic digestion yields reduced compounds e.g. ammonia, hydrogen
sulphide, etc. They actually serve the soil micro-organisms as food,
because the aoil microbes are aerobic organisms. They oxidise these
compounds and use the energy released during this process for their own
metabolism. The oxidised compounds (e.g. nitrate and sulphate) can then be
absorbed by the plants. Therefore, I feel that slurry from anaerobic
digestion is a better compost than the aerobically produced compost.
Yours
A.D.Karve



On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:12 AM, davidf at kingdombio.co.uk Fulford <
davidf at kingdombio.co.uk> wrote:

> Matt, Hello, SKG Sagha and VK-NARDEP are both Ashden award winners (see
> their entries under www.ashden.org - winners) who use vermi-composting of
> bogas plant effluent. I am working with SKG Sangha, who sell biogas units
> to local farmers in South India which use cattle dung as a feed. The liquid
> effluent is mixed with dry biomass (straw, grass, dead leaves etc) and
> composted. The compost is then put in rectangular containers with worms.
> The women scrape of the worm casts each day. They keep the rest of the
> compost moist and covered from the sun. The worm castes are dried and
> bagged. Richer people from Bangalore are willing to pay up to $1000 a tonne
> for the compost in the Indian equivalent of a garden centre to use in their
> own gardens. So you are not wasting your time: you are onto a winning
> approach. The dry biomass absorbes the nitrogen, which is lost if the wet
> slutty is dried, as you suggest. Best wishes, David Fulford
>
> ------------------------------
> *From*: "Matt Lorig" <mattlorig at yahoo.com>
> *Sent*: 03 December 2011 21:25
> *To*: "Digestion at bioenergylists.org" <Digestion at bioenergylists.org>
> *Subject*: Re: [Digestion] Digestate comparison to liquid worm castings
> (Alexander Eaton)
>
>  Hello everyone,
>
> I want to get a dry fertilizer product that I can bag and hopefully sell.
>   I have been planning to take my liquid digestate and add sawdust or
> something similar to dry it and then have the worms eat that.   I've read
> somewhere that if I was to filter and dry the digestate I would lose a lot
> of N with the water.  I know I would lower the Nitrogen percent by adding
> the sawdust but would I gain by not losing the Nitrogen with the water?
> Also seems I would improve the fertilizer by having worm casts and more
> microorganisms from the worms gut.
>
> I'm about ready to actually start this but since the subject has come up
> again I thought I should ask the list for comments.  It would be nice to
> know before I start if I'm wasting my time.
>
> Matt Lorig
> mattlorig at yahoo.com
>
>
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> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>
>
>


-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
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