<div>Dear Mr. Eaton,</div>
<div>I made a very simple experiment in that I applied just half a gram sugar to one kg soil and found that the bacterial population in the soil increased 500 times within 24 hours. Because the microbes are unicellular and because they do not have mechanical tissues like cellulose and lignin, they have almost 10 to 15 % minerals on dry weight basis. Plants have just 5% minerals. Although the agricultural textbooks tell us that the minerals in the soil were insoluble in water, they have actually very low solubility. Because sugar does not have any minerals, my experiment showed that if a carbon source was made available to the soil microbes, they were capable of taking up the necessary minerals from soil water, in spite of the extremely low solubility of soil minerals. There already exists in Maharashtra State, India, a relatively large group of farmers which follows agricultural principles laid down by an old savant by the name of Parashar. He must have lived about fifteen hundred years ago. His writings, originally in Sanskrit language, were translated about 50 years ago. The followers of Parashar apply to their soil, once every three months, 25kg each of sugar and cowdung and 25 litres of cow urine per hectare and nothing else. They get excellent yield and they also report that they do not use any pesticides in their fields. I put a Ph. D. student of mine to visit these farmers and collect data from them. I too visited many of them and found that there existed many variations of the original Parashar formula. Some farmers applied honey instead of sugar, some applied butter fat, while some applied only dung and nothing else. One farmer used green leaves at the rate of 125 kg per ha. All of them reported very high yield and a very healthy crop. I verified the yield and the state of crops of these farmers. Unfortunately, my Ph.D. student abandoned the work because of some property dispute in the family, but I kept pursuing this matter and I think that I have now discovered the scientific explanation to the success of this type of farming. An article written by me under the title " Agriculture using soil minerals instead of chemical fertilizers" forms one chapter of a book titled "Biotechnology for Sustainable Development", edited by Seyed Hasnain, Rashmi Bhavanath Jha and R.N.Sharan; and published by Tata McGraw Hill Education Private Ltd, New Delhi. I had applied to the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, for a research grant to take this work forward, but my request was not granted, most probably because it contradicted the views held by the Science Establishment. I am now 77 years old and since I have retired from active research, there is no chance for me to pursue this theme any further. </div>
<div>Yours</div>
<div>A.D.Karve <br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 2:26 AM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:alexanderb.eaton@gmail.com" target="_blank">alexanderb.eaton@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT:#ccc 1px solid;MARGIN:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;PADDING-LEFT:1ex" class="gmail_quote">Thank you Dr. Karve! I appreciate further explanation. Dung is not considered fuel directly in Mexico, and there are surely dry areas that would benefit from the use of dung as fuel, especially as the availability of water is a challenge for biogas plants.<br>
<br>The fertilizer perspective is also very interesting. Adding the slurry to the plant matter and sugar seems like the ideal mix to increase microbes and organic matter. Are the rates you mentioned pretty much fixed?<br>
<br>Best,<br>A<br>
<div class="im HOEnZb">Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T<br><br>-----Original Message-----<br></div>
<div class="im HOEnZb">From: Anand Karve <<a href="mailto:adkarve@gmail.com">adkarve@gmail.com</a>><br>Sender: "Digestion" <<a href="mailto:digestion-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org">digestion-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>><br>
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 08:41:58<br>To: For Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion<<a href="mailto:digestion@lists.bioenergylists.org">digestion@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>><br>Reply-To: For Discussion of Anaerobic Digestion<br>
<<a href="mailto:digestion@lists.bioenergylists.org">digestion@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>><br>Subject: Re: [Digestion] Biogas plant at Zoo<br><br></div>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5">_______________________________________________<br>Digestion mailing list<br><br>to Send a Message to the list, use the email address<br><a href="mailto:Digestion@bioenergylists.org">Digestion@bioenergylists.org</a><br>
<br>to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page<br><a href="http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org</a><br>
<br>for more information about digestion, see<br>Beginner's Guide to Biogas<br><a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/" target="_blank">http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/</a><br>and the Biogas Wiki <a href="http://biogas.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">http://biogas.wikispaces.com/</a><br>
<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Digestion mailing list<br><br>to Send a Message to the list, use the email address<br><a href="mailto:Digestion@bioenergylists.org">Digestion@bioenergylists.org</a><br>
<br>to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page<br><a href="http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org" target="_blank">http://lists.bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/digestion_lists.bioenergylists.org</a><br>
<br>for more information about digestion, see<br>Beginner's Guide to Biogas<br><a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/" target="_blank">http://www.adelaide.edu.au/biogas/</a><br>and the Biogas Wiki <a href="http://biogas.wikispaces.com/" target="_blank">http://biogas.wikispaces.com/</a><br>
<br></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>***<br>Dr. A.D. Karve<br>Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)<br><br>