[Digestion] Digestion Digest, Vol 11, Issue 5

Wed Jul 6 22:11:56 CDT 2011

Dear Mel,
we used sugar only in some of our lab experiments. On the field we use
green leaves. Green leaves, on a dry matter basis, have the same
nutritional calories as sugar.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:09 PM,  <finstein at envsci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> Regarding sugar as a soil amendment:
>
> Consider the environmental cost of growing cane (or other sugar rich
> plant) and that of refining the sugar. Putting aside any supposed benefit,
> this should give pause to the "idea" being discussed!
>
> Mel
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: Digestate as fertilizer. (Anand Karve)
>>    2. Re: Digestate as fertilizer. (Jean-Luc Sallustro)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2011 11:02:23 +0800
>> From: Anand Karve <adkarve at gmail.com>
>> To: For Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion
>>       <digestion at lists.bioenergylists.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Digestion] Digestate as fertilizer.
>> Message-ID:
>>       <CACPy7SfafYs8oZk0PHPPSQMQp-hdhKaeKt9-4C0Qg-zSZOnZ0w at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>> Dear Jean-Luc,
>> on dry weight basis, green leaves have the same nutritional calorific
>> value as sugar. Therefore, when farmers apply green manure to crops,
>> they are also feeding the soil microbes. It is recommended by many
>> sugar factories in India to grow a green manure crop between the rows
>> of sugarcane, at the time of planting sugarcane, and then to plough
>> the green manure into the soil at two month stage of the crop.
>> Analysis of soils before and after this operation showed an almost
>> doubling of N,P and K in the soil. This increase in NPK did not come
>> directly from the green matter incorporated into the soil but through
>> the microbes, which multipled their numbers when they fed on the green
>> matter and took up minerals directly from the soil. We acknowledge the
>> fact that the top 10 to 15 cm layer of soil in a field is very
>> fertile, but we do not call it humus, because the organic content in
>> our soils is always very low. The fertility of this layer is
>> contributed by the fact that leaves, animal dung, and other organic
>> residues fall on top of the soil, where they are decomposed by aerobic
>> micro-organisms. As I stated above, the microbes multiply their
>> numbers when provided with any source of organic carbon. In the
>> process of multiplication, they take up the minerals directly from the
>> capillary water in the soil. Soil contains an infinite variety of
>> microbes, and those which are best adapted to that particular soil
>> condition multiply. If the soil is phosphate deficient, the phosphate
>> solubilizing bacteria would multiply. If the soil were nitrogen
>> deficient, the N-fixing microbes would be better able to survive than
>> the non-fixing ones, and if the soil were saline, the halophytic
>> microbes would have the upper hand over others. It is plain "survival
>> of the fittest". After the microbes have exhausted the food, they die
>> of starvation and release the organo-mineral compounds into the soil,
>> increasing thereby the soil fertility. The organo-mineral complexes,
>> such as proteins, enzymes and co-enzymes are soluble in water and they
>> can be readily taken up by plants. The plants don't care from which
>> category of microbes they get their minerals. There is no need to
>> apply chemical fertilizers to the soil. And there is also no need to
>> apply any special kinds of bacterial cultures to the soil.
>> Yours
>> A.D.Karve
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Jean-Luc Sallustro
>> <jean-luc.sallustro at eventure-international.com> wrote:
>>> Dear Anand,
>>>
>>> I am really interested by this vision of sugar nutrient cycle.
>>> Let me say first that even if I am from Europe, (you are right on this
>>> point) my group is in Mauritius, and then involved with sugar cane
>>> agronomy
>>> (or other Poacae)
>>> Sure that cellulose is a kind of sugar ... but strongly polymerized, at
>>> a
>>> point that the only bacterial strain enabling its degradation is aerobic
>>> and
>>> particularly thermophilic.
>>> Soils macro decomposers such as colemboles or worms alternatively or
>>> complementary play a role within this decomposition stage of cellulose
>>> and
>>> hemicellulosis.
>>> What seems to me of utmost interest in your assessment is that sugar (I
>>> assume you are considering raw sugar ?) provides for direct enhancement
>>> of
>>> soil fertility (when bring with organic N) for the reason that this
>>> immediately available energy positively stresses bacterial flora (but
>>> which
>>> strains in particular ?) and then allows the production of mineral
>>> nutrients
>>> to reach the plants depending on export demands (Poacae are C4 type and
>>> therefore strongly dependant from photocycles and water availability).
>>> The way different +/- polymerized sugars reach the soil is a well known
>>> thing, but what's about humus role (even as thin it seems ... there is
>>> always an upper layer of biomass on the 0 to 15 cm depth of soils), and
>>> what
>>> is happening as an interaction between microbial activity in this
>>> superior
>>> soil level, sugar solution (rain fed context) and other N linked
>>> bacterial
>>> strains ?
>>> My hypothesis was that there is a risk of demobilisation of these
>>> endemic
>>> bacterial strains, maybe one can put the question like this "when
>>> stopping
>>> "sugar feeding" what will happen with organic N, P and K availability ?"
>>> All the best
>>> Jean-Luc
>>>
>>> Le lundi 04 juillet 2011 ? 12:11 +0800, Anand Karve a ?crit :
>>>
>>> Dear Jean-Luc,
>>> feeding sugar to the soil microbes is done by the plants themselves.
>>> The water of guttation of sorghum and safflower contains sugar. All
>>> the plants that are infested by aphids also drop sugar on the ground
>>> below their canopy. The leaves that fall on the ground also contain a
>>> type of sugar (cellulose), In the case of many trees, one finds a
>>> carpet of fruits underneath their canopy. The fruits contain sugars.
>>> Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) leaves exude organic acids, which too fall
>>> on the ground to feed the soil microbes. In India, in the region where
>>> I live, literally thousands of farmers have taken up the practice of
>>> applying sugar to the field. For every hectare,they use a mixture of
>>> 25 kg sugar, 25 kg cattle dung and 25 litres cattle urine. It is
>>> applied once every three months. In an earlier experiment, I got the
>>> soil from a non-irrigated and non-fertilized field analysed
>>> consecutively for 5 years and found that in spite of growing crops on
>>> this soil, there was no change in the soil composition over this
>>> period. In India, the agricultural yield is positively correlated with
>>> the rainfall and not with any other factors like the sale of
>>> fertilizers, pesticides, hybrid seed, etc. Humus is a typical topic
>>> raised by European agricultural scientists. Nobody talks of it in
>>> India, most probably because our soils do not have the humus layer
>>> that European soils have.
>>> Yours
>>> A.D.Karve
>>> On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Jean-Luc Sallustro
>>> <jean-luc.sallustro at eventure-international.com> wrote:
>>>> Dear A? D Karve
>>>>
>>>> For my understanding microbes have an important role in the soil at a
>>>> stage
>>>> where endemic proto nutrient are made available for them within the
>>>> humic
>>>> clay complex.
>>>> This deep stage of macro nutrient (organic NPK) evolution can be
>>>> depleted
>>>> for many reasons such as K sustainable sequestration, unavailability of
>>>> macro nutrient, not enough water percolation (soil solubility) etc.
>>>> Don't you think that one of the risks of depletion in N chain can be
>>>> the
>>>> demobilization of upper soil decomposers due to the fact that
>>>> immedialty
>>>> avalible nutrient are provided (sugar)
>>>> Regards
>>>> J-L Sallustro
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Digestion mailing list
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>>> for more information about digestion, see
>>> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
>>> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
>>> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Digestion mailing list
>>>
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>>>
>>> for more information about digestion, see
>>> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
>>> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
>>> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ***
>> Dr. A.D. Karve
>> President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
>>
>> *Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:45:16 +0400
>> From: Jean-Luc Sallustro
>>       <jean-luc.sallustro at eventure-international.com>
>> To: digestion at lists.bioenergylists.org
>> Subject: Re: [Digestion] Digestate as fertilizer.
>> Message-ID: <1309877116.2371.43.camel at laptop-jls>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15"
>>
>> Dear Anand,
>>
>> I shall stress on the fact that we, in Mauritius and elsewhere in
>> Africa, are fighting against this abusive use of chemical fertilizers.
>> This battle is at a point that one of our subsidiary is totally devoted
>> to a project which aims at producing organo-mineral fertilizer providing
>> that we are supplied with compost and digestats issuing from several
>> composting and biodigester plants we are builidng (treatment of poultry
>> waste, sugar factory waste and ethanol distillery effluents, hostels
>> organic waste ...) Then I totally agree with your assessment regarding
>> the fact there is no inescapable need for chemical fertilizer.
>> Now, my question was on the use of raw sugar not on the soundness of a
>> biofertilization strategy. Once again I would like to stress on the fact
>> that "sugar fertilization"  seems to be a very interesting alternative
>> to CMS for example.
>> Let me rise again the point related to the comparison you make between
>> sugar (as a low level polymerised carbonaceous compound) and cellulosis
>> and hemicellulosis. For my understanding the very question is here to
>> define what we call "organic matter", not in absolute terms of calorific
>> value but through an ecological point of view then taking into account
>> the complex interaction of microbial strains, macro decomposers,
>> chemical role of water as a solvant, chemical role of clay as a substrat
>> for H+ ions exchanges etc ... We all know a bit about NPK export from
>> soils solutions to plants but it seems to me that we are not enough
>> aware about organic matter, and worst about biomass in soils. As an
>> example I have raised the fact that sugar will feed a particular class
>> of microbes (and maybe other macro biotypes) and that will maybe imply
>> that a lot of other bacterial strains will disappear or be weakened
>> (celullosis decompostion ones). Do you have some observation to share on
>> this point ?
>> Best regards
>> jean-luc
>>
>>
>> Le mardi 05 juillet 2011 ? 11:02 +0800, Anand Karve a ?crit :
>>
>>> Dear Jean-Luc,
>>> on dry weight basis, green leaves have the same nutritional calorific
>>> value as sugar. Therefore, when farmers apply green manure to crops,
>>> they are also feeding the soil microbes. It is recommended by many
>>> sugar factories in India to grow a green manure crop between the rows
>>> of sugarcane, at the time of planting sugarcane, and then to plough
>>> the green manure into the soil at two month stage of the crop.
>>> Analysis of soils before and after this operation showed an almost
>>> doubling of N,P and K in the soil. This increase in NPK did not come
>>> directly from the green matter incorporated into the soil but through
>>> the microbes, which multipled their numbers when they fed on the green
>>> matter and took up minerals directly from the soil. We acknowledge the
>>> fact that the top 10 to 15 cm layer of soil in a field is very
>>> fertile, but we do not call it humus, because the organic content in
>>> our soils is always very low. The fertility of this layer is
>>> contributed by the fact that leaves, animal dung, and other organic
>>> residues fall on top of the soil, where they are decomposed by aerobic
>>> micro-organisms. As I stated above, the microbes multiply their
>>> numbers when provided with any source of organic carbon. In the
>>> process of multiplication, they take up the minerals directly from the
>>> capillary water in the soil. Soil contains an infinite variety of
>>> microbes, and those which are best adapted to that particular soil
>>> condition multiply. If the soil is phosphate deficient, the phosphate
>>> solubilizing bacteria would multiply. If the soil were nitrogen
>>> deficient, the N-fixing microbes would be better able to survive than
>>> the non-fixing ones, and if the soil were saline, the halophytic
>>> microbes would have the upper hand over others. It is plain "survival
>>> of the fittest". After the microbes have exhausted the food, they die
>>> of starvation and release the organo-mineral compounds into the soil,
>>> increasing thereby the soil fertility. The organo-mineral complexes,
>>> such as proteins, enzymes and co-enzymes are soluble in water and they
>>> can be readily taken up by plants. The plants don't care from which
>>> category of microbes they get their minerals. There is no need to
>>> apply chemical fertilizers to the soil. And there is also no need to
>>> apply any special kinds of bacterial cultures to the soil.
>>> Yours
>>> A.D.Karve
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Jean-Luc Sallustro
>>> <jean-luc.sallustro at eventure-international.com> wrote:
>>> > Dear Anand,
>>> >
>>> > I am really interested by this vision of sugar nutrient cycle.
>>> > Let me say first that even if I am from Europe, (you are right on this
>>> > point) my group is in Mauritius, and then involved with sugar cane
>>> agronomy
>>> > (or other Poacae)
>>> > Sure that cellulose is a kind of sugar ... but strongly polymerized,
>>> at a
>>> > point that the only bacterial strain enabling its degradation is
>>> aerobic and
>>> > particularly thermophilic.
>>> > Soils macro decomposers such as colemboles or worms alternatively or
>>> > complementary play a role within this decomposition stage of cellulose
>>> and
>>> > hemicellulosis.
>>> > What seems to me of utmost interest in your assessment is that sugar
>>> (I
>>> > assume you are considering raw sugar ?) provides for direct
>>> enhancement of
>>> > soil fertility (when bring with organic N) for the reason that this
>>> > immediately available energy positively stresses bacterial flora (but
>>> which
>>> > strains in particular ?) and then allows the production of mineral
>>> nutrients
>>> > to reach the plants depending on export demands (Poacae are C4 type
>>> and
>>> > therefore strongly dependant from photocycles and water availability).
>>> > The way different +/- polymerized sugars reach the soil is a well
>>> known
>>> > thing, but what's about humus role (even as thin it seems ... there is
>>> > always an upper layer of biomass on the 0 to 15 cm depth of soils),
>>> and what
>>> > is happening as an interaction between microbial activity in this
>>> superior
>>> > soil level, sugar solution (rain fed context) and other N linked
>>> bacterial
>>> > strains ?
>>> > My hypothesis was that there is a risk of demobilisation of these
>>> endemic
>>> > bacterial strains, maybe one can put the question like this "when
>>> stopping
>>> > "sugar feeding" what will happen with organic N, P and K availability
>>> ?"
>>> > All the best
>>> > Jean-Luc
>>> >
>>> > Le lundi 04 juillet 2011 ? 12:11 +0800, Anand Karve a ?crit :
>>> >
>>> > Dear Jean-Luc,
>>> > feeding sugar to the soil microbes is done by the plants themselves.
>>> > The water of guttation of sorghum and safflower contains sugar. All
>>> > the plants that are infested by aphids also drop sugar on the ground
>>> > below their canopy. The leaves that fall on the ground also contain a
>>> > type of sugar (cellulose), In the case of many trees, one finds a
>>> > carpet of fruits underneath their canopy. The fruits contain sugars.
>>> > Chickpea (Cicer arietinum) leaves exude organic acids, which too fall
>>> > on the ground to feed the soil microbes. In India, in the region where
>>> > I live, literally thousands of farmers have taken up the practice of
>>> > applying sugar to the field. For every hectare,they use a mixture of
>>> > 25 kg sugar, 25 kg cattle dung and 25 litres cattle urine. It is
>>> > applied once every three months. In an earlier experiment, I got the
>>> > soil from a non-irrigated and non-fertilized field analysed
>>> > consecutively for 5 years and found that in spite of growing crops on
>>> > this soil, there was no change in the soil composition over this
>>> > period. In India, the agricultural yield is positively correlated with
>>> > the rainfall and not with any other factors like the sale of
>>> > fertilizers, pesticides, hybrid seed, etc. Humus is a typical topic
>>> > raised by European agricultural scientists. Nobody talks of it in
>>> > India, most probably because our soils do not have the humus layer
>>> > that European soils have.
>>> > Yours
>>> > A.D.Karve
>>> > On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Jean-Luc Sallustro
>>> > <jean-luc.sallustro at eventure-international.com> wrote:
>>> >> Dear A  D Karve
>>> >>
>>> >> For my understanding microbes have an important role in the soil at a
>>> >> stage
>>> >> where endemic proto nutrient are made available for them within the
>>> humic
>>> >> clay complex.
>>> >> This deep stage of macro nutrient (organic NPK) evolution can be
>>> depleted
>>> >> for many reasons such as K sustainable sequestration, unavailability
>>> of
>>> >> macro nutrient, not enough water percolation (soil solubility) etc.
>>> >> Don't you think that one of the risks of depletion in N chain can be
>>> the
>>> >> demobilization of upper soil decomposers due to the fact that
>>> immedialty
>>> >> avalible nutrient are provided (sugar)
>>> >> Regards
>>> >> J-L Sallustro
>>> >>
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Digestion mailing list
>>> > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
>>> > Digestion at bioenergylists.org
>>> > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>>> > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org
>>> > for more information about digestion, see
>>> > Beginner's Guide to Biogas
>>> > http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
>>> > and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Digestion mailing list
>>> >
>>> > to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
>>> > Digestion at bioenergylists.org
>>> >
>>> > to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
>>> > http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org
>>> >
>>> > for more information about digestion, see
>>> > Beginner's Guide to Biogas
>>> > http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
>>> > and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Digestion mailing list
>>
>> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
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>>
>> for more information about digestion, see
>> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
>> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
>> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>>
>>
>>
>> End of Digestion Digest, Vol 11, Issue 5
>> ****************************************
>>
>
>
> Melvin S. Finstein, Ph.D.
> Professor Emeritus
> Rutgers University
>
> 105 Carmel Road
> Wheeling, WV 26003
> 304.242.0341
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Digestion mailing list
>
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
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> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
> http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org
>
> for more information about digestion, see
> Beginner's Guide to Biogas
> http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/
> and the Biogas Wiki http://biogas.wikispaces.com/
>
>

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

*Please change my email address in your records to: adkarve at gmail.com *