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

[Anand Karve]

Dear Dr. Chanakya,
There are literally thousands of farmers in peninsular India, who apply,
once every three months, about 25kg each of sugar, cow dung and cow urine
per ha to their fields, and nothing else. This mixture is called Amritpani
in Maharashtra and Panchagavya in Karnataka. These farmers get high yield
and their crops are generally without any pests or diseases. Applying
slurry from biogas plants to crop plants is a form of organic farming.  In
organic farming, the crop plants automatically get all the minerals that
they need. The mineral deficiencies in the soil, not just of N, P and
K  but also the micronutrient deficiencies are corrected in this form
agriculture. A crop not suffering from mineral deficiencies
has generally the ability to protect itself from pests and diseases. I
don't think that biogas slurry has any insecticidal or fungicidal
properties. The guts of animals represent live biogas plants and their dung
represents the slurry of a biogas plant. Dung attracts all sorts of insects
and mushrooms grow quite well on dung. I have seen mosquito larvae in the
gap between the digester and the gas holder of moving drum type of biogas
plants.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 6:49 PM, Hoysall Chanakya <
chanakya at astra.iisc.ernet.in> wrote:

> 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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>
>


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