[Stoves] Compost and soil fertility

[adkarve]

Dear van Milligan,
please note that I am talking of using green leaves as manure. Green leaves
are metabolically the most active parts of a plant and therefore they
contain all the elements that any organism may need. In fact, that is why
cattle as well as caterpillars can survive solely by eating green leaves.
When you apply green leaves to a field,  the soil micro-organisms feed on
them and multiply. Whatever element the multiplying micro-organisms may
absorb from the soil, is again made available to the plants growing in that
field, because once the 125 kg green leaves, representing only 25 kg dry
matter per ha, are eaten up by the micro-organisms, their population density
begins to come down. I have been practising agriculture with this method of
manuring for the last few years and am getting quite good yields, without
applying any chemical fertilizers. This method of agriculture does not
however succeed if the soil is water logged, because water logging prevents
the multiplication of the normal, aerobic soil micro-organisms. One has to
apply chemical fertilizers in such a case.
Yours
A.D.Karve
----- Original Message -----
From: <CAVM at aol.com>
To: <stoves at listserv.repp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 7:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Compost and soil fertility


>
> Dr. Karve, I have the highest regard for your work in alternative energy
and
> power, however, I am concerned about the issue of composting vs green
> biomass applied to fields. Usually when we speak of applying green biomass
or  even
> manure to fields we call it "sheet composting" or "Trench composting"
> depending on how the material is applied.
>
> All organic matter will decompose in a combination of bacterial and
chemical
> action we know as composting. When organic matter is applied directly  to
the
> soil it will compost as well but if there is an imbalance of nutrients
for
> the process to occur the needed elements will be extracted from the  soil.
For
> example, if there is insufficient nitrogen in an application it  will suck
N
> from the soil and perhaps leave it depleted.
>
> By composting in a remote site and then applying the compost to the soil
> significant benefits can be obtained for the crops and the soil microbial
> population. It is true that unless certain steps are taken that N will
tend to
> volatilize from the compost but the process will slow down from a lack of
N
> rather than extract it from the nearby soil.  Remedial action can then be
taken to
> improve the composting process without negatively impacting the  crops.
>
> Regards,
>
> Neal Van Milligen
> Kentucky Enrichment Inc
> _www.kentuckyenrichment.com_ (http://www.kentuckyenrichment.com)
> _cavm at aol.com_ (mailto:cavm at aol.com)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> Agronomists advocating application of composted organic matter to the
fields
> are actually misleading farmers. On the one hand the agronomists claim
that
> organic matter was essential for feeding the soil micro-organisms and on
the
> other hand they ask farmers to reduce the nutritional value of the
organic
> matter by composting it. One should use green leaves as manure.  Green
> manuring is well known to farmers, but they plant a whole field with  the
> green manuring crop and bury the crop into the field. Actually, only
about
> 125 kg fresh green leaves need to be applied to a hectare of land  to
> maintain a high population density of the soil micro-organisms. Just
burying
> the weeds growing in the field in the space between the crop rows  can
> achieve this objective. In the former ages, when there was no dearth  of
> energy, people wanted a method for getting rid of waste biomass.
Composting
> waste biomass reduced its volume and applying the compost to the  fields
> increased the soil fertility.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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