[Digestion] Digestate as fertilizer.

Murali Krishna bmkrishna6 at gmail.com
Fri Jul 1 23:42:24 CDT 2011


Good day Brent,

I  agree with you.  All over the world soil convervation aspect is not given
as much attention as  is required.  Soils are fast degrading and eroding.
Carbon content in the soil is depleting very fast day by day and seldom it
is replinished. Farmers have been suffering a lot on this account. The
yesteryear practice of returning the herbage to soil after harvesting the
produce is seldom practised by the present generation of  farmers and only a
few farmers are concerned.  In good olden days  majority of the farmers used
to compost  crop residue and animal dung at their backyards.  Those
recycling methods are rarely seen now.

The input of 25 kgs of dry leaves (as suggested by Dr. Karveji) may not be
sufficient unless and otherwise there is a reserve of carbonaceous matter in
the soil and periodical replenishments are taken care of in that particular
region.  As we all know, some crops pull very heavily from the soil and that
amount need to be replineshed and balanced if we expect to grow crops by the
coming generations .  As long as there are reserves, soil responds even to
small doses of input but once the reserves exhaust, I do not think small
quantities of carbonaceous material is sufficient.

Anaerobic Digester replacing animal and the harmful methane is converted
into a renewable source of energy. Pulverisers, Chopppers occupied the place
of  grinding  teeth and the Digester occupied the place of gut, rumen and
intestines of animals. The chain of microbes are transferred from animal to
Anaerobic Digesters (anaerobic digestion of greens). Most of the weed seeds
and pathogens that pass on to the soil from the animals are  taken care of
in the digester (if proper care is taken).  The digestate  with fibres and
trace elements has to go back into the soil.

There are restrictions to spread the effluent directly on to the soil unless
and until you prove that they are pathogen free and every precaution has
been taken.  Of course in developing countries the government is not yet
enforcing the laws in this regard. It is funny that digester effluent is
restricted and undigested dung and other such materials  still openly left
in the environment are not bothered.  As long as God gifted microbes are
allowed to survive and mankind does not monkey with Nature, I do feel that
there is no need to concern much on this account.

Krishna.





On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 10:27 PM, bingham <bingham at zekes.com> wrote:

> **
> Dear A.D. Karve,
>
> I am not sure I follow your point?
>
> As part of my degree we studied cotton production in the Mississippi River
> Delta region of the US,
> wheat production in the Mid West US and truck farming in California US.
>
> Many of the really old plantations and farms kept very complete production
> records.
> Unfortunately they were not very smart farmers.
> They planted the same crop for decades with out adding anything to the
> soil.
> There crop yields dropped miserably each year until the river would flood.
> After the soil dried out and farming could resume and the crop yields rose
> back to previous levels.
>
> The Wheat farmers in the Mid West  and the truck farmers  in California had
> similar problems but there were no floods so NPK was
> added in later years and yields returned.
>
> Old dried Samples of the wheat and produce were found stored that dated
> back 60 to 100 years.
> When the old samples of produce were analyzed and compared to modern
> samples they had marked differences in the
> amounts of  the trace minerals they contained.
>
> The old samples had higher levels of almost all trace minerals than there
> modern counterparts.
> Some of the trace minerals were totally absent in the new samples of wheat
> and vegetables.
>
> Soil samples of the areas where the food samples were taken showed the
> minerals were depleted from the soil in the root
> zone of the crops.
>
> In some deeper samples the concentrations of the trace minerals improved
> but they were unreachable by the plants.
>
> Is your point that the minerals necessary to grow the plants are
> replenished through natural chemical and biological actions
> faster than the plants remove them?
>
> I have a theory that the food we now eat is missing many of the nutrients
> that were in food eaten by our progenitors.
> As a result of the missing nutrients we are now less healthy and prone to
> exhibit a number of health problems.
>
> If the soil where your "organic manure" is obtained has been depleted of
> the trace minerals it may aide plant growth but
> not the plants nutritional value.
>
> The areas we applied AD byproducts showed improvement to the soil trace
> minerals in the plants over time.
> I did not have the time money or patients to determine why the improvement
> took place only that it does happened.
>
> It may be the result of a new bio-chemical processes beginning in the
> soil introduced from the AD or from AD byproducts
> themselves.
>
> Brent
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com>
> *To:* For Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion<digestion at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 29, 2011 8:13 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Digestion] Digestate as fertilizer.
>
> Dear List,
>  The fact that the soil micro-organisms contribute to soil fertility is
> accepted by all agricultural scientists. Logic tells us that high calorie,
> non-composted organic matter would serve the microbes best as
> nutrition. From this point of view, we conducted experiments and found that
> plain sugar or pulped green leaves were excellent as soil amendments. The
> rates of application were 25 kg dry matter per ha. Capillary water in the
> soil always has soil minerals dissolved in it. When one applies a carbon
> source to the soil, the microbes absorb the necessary soil minerals from the
> capillary water. There is no need to add minerals through the organic
> matter. That is why even plain sugar causes soil microbes to increase their
> numbers. The concentration of minerals in the capillary water is at a
> dynamic equilibrium. If a mineral molecule is removed from the capillary
> water by a microbe, it is replaced by a molecule going into solution from
> the un-dissolved pool of minerals in the soil. We have about 30 km of
> earth's crust under our feet. New soil is being formed every day. Only 5% of
> the dry weight of plants is constituted by minerals. Therefore there is an
> unlimited supply of minerals in the soil. Don't think that it would ever get
> exhausted by agriculture. And when you apply an organic manure to the soil,
> don't calculate the NPK in it but count the nutritional calories in it.
> Yours
> A.D.Karve
>
>
>
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>


-- 


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