[Digestion] "Pest Repellent property of dilute slurry" - contd

[Joe Crescenzi]

Someday, someone will discover a new Spinosad in bioslurry and be worth major $$$$$. The members of this list could approach an agroPharm company to do this research. I know this, or many, bugs or fungus is out there in someone's biodigester. 
Joe Crescenzi

> Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 18:49:14 +0530
> From: chanakya at astra.iisc.ernet.in
> To: digestion at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Subject: [Digestion] "Pest Repellent property of dilute slurry" - contd
> 
> Dear List users
> Many thanks to all who have continued to react and respond to my request. 
> With special thanks to Frank Shields, Joe Crescenzi, Jaime Marti Herrero,
> Eric Buysman, Isiaka Taiwo, Krishna, Jagadeesh – your inputs are really of
> interest.  It has spurred to take up this as a potential project in the
> coming months.  In doing so I thought some clarification and Introduction
> is in order and therefore this longish response.
> 
> I thought I will write a short note about my interest and my exposure to
> this option.  It came way back in 1992 working with resource poor farmers
> of Tamil Nadu, South India where, just as Eric Busyman indicated, farmers
> fermented dilute cattle dung slurry and various local weeds and herbs and
> made a pest repellant that they filtered and sprayed as foliar sprays on
> crops such as rice-paddy (plant hoppers, paddy butterfly), ground nut (red
> hairy caterpillar), cotton (pink boll worms), castor (semi looper – Murali
> Krishna talked about – Spodoptera ), flower crops and vegetables such as
> tomato, brinjal, Lady fingers, Chilli, etc.  They christened this
> decoction “Ural” in Tamil – loosely translated into English as “steepage
> /soakage”.  These farmers belonged to the Low External Input and
> Sustainable Agriculture (LEISA) network based in Trichy and as Eric
> responded, the outcomes were mixed.  My interaction with these farmers
> (c.2000 farmers, in 10 districts of TN) circa 1997-2000 indicated roughly
> a similar mix of responses as Eric obtained in Thailand.  Alas!! those
> were not the days of auto-focus, aim and shoot digital pocket cameras so I
> have very little documentation or organized data /study of its effectivity
> in the field.
> 
> Should any one of you like to get more anecdotal details on diluted cattle
> dung slurry fermented with various local leafy materials, I suggest you
> could interact directly with kudumbamtry at yahoo.co.in [contact persons
> Oswald Quintal and Suresh Kanna].  I stopped taking note of this seriously
> when farmers and the network started to change the inputs (circa 2002) and
> began to mix fermented whey (dilute butter milk), clarified butter, milk,
> and traditional Indian medicinal herbs in small quantities thereby
> bringing in a large change in the “possible” active components or
> microflora.  Such mixtures and fermented brews are too complex to study
> anyway.
> 
> Our own researches (at IISc, Bangalore) showed that biogas digester
> residue (digestate from non-cattle dung biogas plants) encourage growth of
> all types of earth worms and their growth in turn reduce viable counts of
> soil borne pathogens such as Rolstonia and Rhizoctonia in our red soils
> around Bangalore.  While farmers, who used cattle dung biogas plant slurry
> (as dried residue) onto paddy and vegetable nurseries reported fewer
> pathogens and very low weeds emerging in their nurseries especially with
> paddy and vegetable plots.  Once again we did not document these at that
> time.
> 
> Circa 2004-2006, the Horticulture Department of Karnataka State (south
> India) subsidized a concept of “bioreactor” where weeds and leafy
> agro-residues were ‘anaerobically’ fermented in open tanks and the
> resultant ‘anaerobic’ leachate was sprayed back on horticulture crops
> after diluting 1:5 with water.  This was to serve both as a source of
> micro-nutrients as well as a pest repellant.  About Rs25,000 (USD650) was
> the subsidy amount provided.  Once again there were no ‘third party’
> documentation of the outcomes and effectivity in the field nor were the
> active principles identified.
> 
> I thought we had missed the bus until I found that use of such pest
> repellants is once again growing and becoming popular among organic
> markets and it has the potential to grow further.  As organic markets (and
> bulk dealers) test samples and ensure absence of pesticide residues, the
> use of diluted biogas slurry, I expect will once again become popular
> among organic as well as resource poor farmers.
> 
> Thank you all.  I will now begin to document such pesticidal and pest
> repellant outcomes.  Any additional inputs from you all will be greatly
> welcome.
> Chanakya
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dr. Hoysall Chanakya
> Centre for Sustainable Technologies
> (Assoc. Faculty at Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and
> Urban Planning (CiSTUP) and Centre for Contemporary Studies)
> Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012
> ph 91-80-2293 3046; fax-91 80 2360 0683
> 
> 
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