Organic Farming Articles

Composting Toilets

Jeff Kures — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:06:06 +0000

A couple of months ago I wrote an article touting our Port product and how it can "Eliminate Portable Toilet Odors Naturally" Since that article we have a few people who are not as knowledgable about the facilities that they use while hiking but are very concerned with the trails and parks that they frequent. We feel that it is important to have a full education on one vital issue to maintaining and running a park or trail . . . the toilets.

When there is not only no running water, but no way to bring in heavy pumping trucks, and there are dozens of hikers hiking through that need to do their “business”, then a special solution is needed to keep the forest floor from becoming diseased and odorous.

The composting toilet is the environmentally friendly solution for backcountry human waste disposal. Human waste can introduce non-native pathogens into pristine natural environments if it isn’t properly disposed. Composting toilets use aerobic decomposition of organic matter by bacteria, fungi, molds, and other organisms to transform waste into a relatively dry, nutrient-rich humus material better known as compost. Quality compost can actually improve soil structure and provide nutrients to the soil.

Composting toilets generally consist of a toilet unit with seat, a composting tank or tray, a ventilation shaft, and an access port for compost removal. The composting process requires three basic elements: nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen. The toilet waste provides the nitrogen and the ventilation shaft provides the oxygen. Dry, high carbon, organic material such as sawdust, leaves, bark, or straw clippings may need to be added to provide bulk and to aid compost organisms.

Addition of a product like Port from Southland Organics can greatly accelerate the composting process through the addition of microbes, carbon and humic materials to the process. This is especially useful in high altitude alpine locations or extreme northerly latitudes. The relatively short composting season in these cooler climates provide an extra challenge that can only be overcome through the more aggressive decomposition rates provided through the use of Port.

A warm, well-ventilated container with a diverse community of microbes will break down waste materials and will eventually produce an odorless nutrient-rich organic material. Waste materials can be excrement, urine, toilet paper, and readily decomposable vegetable byproducts. A well managed composting process reduces waste volume by 80 to 90 percent. With good care, these composts produce temperatures of 120-130 degrees Fahrenheit, high enough to destroy most pathogens. Nitrogen and phosphorus are conserved and concentrated in the compost product.

The product of this process can be used as agricultural compost, benefiting the soil rather than ruining it. Another end product is gas. Carbon dioxide and water vapor are both produced, but are harmless as they are the same gases that humans exhale. If the toilet is overloaded and not maintained properly however, hydrogen sulfide (which has a powerful rotten eggs like smell) and methane can be produced and are not safe for human inhalation.

Regular maintenance to the composting unit includes the addition of bulking material (once weekly), 4 to 12 liters of fresh water per day, raking and the removal of the liquid end product (once weekly). A liquid removal system is standard in most composting toilets and can gravity flow the product to a storage tank where it can be applied to soil via irrigation. If soils irrigation is not possible due to regulatory requirements, the liquid would have to be removed approximately once or twice a year. Evaporation tanks are used in some locations to evaporate as much as 50% of the liquids, further reducing the necessity of hauling this liquid out of the backcountry.

Composting toilets are a great solution for eco –friendly human waste problems far from the comforts of civilization. So next time you come across one on a cross country hike, go ahead and leave a little something behind. After all, it’s only helping the environment!

How organic foods help fight cancer and other diseases

Jeff Kures — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:46:19 +0000

Oxygen is the stuff of life. It’s the single element in the air that we breathe that is absolutely essential for life. Without it we quickly die. The path that oxygen takes into our bodies and cells is something we take for granted; we breathe and it gets in there. As with all things biological however, the truth is far more complex. The ability of oxygen to reach into individual cells in your body has huge implications for your overall health, and can even be a major factor in whether you get cancer. The good news in this is that you can directly impact the efficiency of your body’s oxygen intake even at the cellular level through exercise and a diet that includes fresh, organically grown foods.

The human body requires constant amounts of oxygen in its blood for proper functioning. Extremely low oxygen levels, also called hypoxemia, may occur due to a variety of conditions including asthma, lung disease and iron-deficiency anemia. Shortness of breath, anxiety, disorientation, headaches, high blood pressure and bluish skin are the common symptoms of hypoxemia. But even levels of oxygen that are just slightly low may have harmful detrimental effects on your health in the long term. A lack of exercise and diets high in fat and lacking fresh fruits and vegetables may lower your body’s ability to take in and use oxygen. This in turn may make all the difference as to whether you eventually get diseases like diabetes or cancer.

Iron
Iron-deficient anemia occurs when your diet is low in iron and leads to reduced levels of hemoglobin, the oxygen carrier in the blood. This can lead to hypoxemia. The University of Maryland Medical Center recommends iron-rich foods including meats, poultry, fish, legumes, green leafy vegetables, whole wheat breads and iron-enriched pastas to treat iron-deficiency anemia, and thereby improve oxygen levels in the blood.

Low-Fat Diet
Several animal studies, such as the one published in June 2007 edition of the "Obesity," have revealed that a high-fat diet can lead to insulin resistance and sleep apnea in rats. Sleep apnea and the associated lack of rest are common risk factors for hypoxemia. Eating a high-fiber, low-fat diet with high amounts of fruits and vegetables may help improve blood oxygen levels.

Fruits and Vegetables
Articles recently published in Cancer Active and the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology state that reduced levels of oxygen in the blood increase the risk of certain cancers. The intake of alkaline water, along with fruits and vegetables rich in potassium and magnesium such as bananas, potatoes, tomatoes and green leafy vegetables, can help increase oxygenation of the blood and even at the cellular level. Fruits and vegetables, according to MayoClinic.com, are also rich sources of antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E that protect the oxygen carrying blood cells against the harmful effects of free radicals.

Low-Sodium Diet
According to a study published in the March 2010 edition of the "Hypertension," a diet low in sodium can lead to increased oxygenation of the kidney via blood. The low-sodium diet aims to reduce the sodium intake to less than 2,000 mg per day and includes fresh fruits and vegetables, beans, peas, legumes, and whole grains.

Mediterranean Diet
The Mediterranean diet can help maintain healthy lung function by halving the risk of lung disease, says an article published by Science Daily in May 2007. It can thus promote sufficient oxygenation of the blood and prevent hypoxemia. The Mediterranean diet is also high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts and low in refined sugars, meats and whole-fat dairy products.

Chemical Culprits
A March 2001 study released by the Center for Disease Control revealed that accumulations of toxic chemicals in our bodies likely have serious long term consequences to our health. Many of these chemicals are culprits in reducing the oxygen available in our bloodstreams. Because cancers and diseases are so widespread in older populations, we tend to view them as "to be expected" or "typical" of older age. In reality, however, diseases could be the body`s response to living in and ingesting toxic chemicals for many years of our lives without questioning the safety or danger of these choices.

Cancer
According to a study published in the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology in April of 2012,
Lack of Oxygen was shown to be a major culprit in the accelerated growth of seven different types of cancer namely breast, kidney, liver, lung, ovarian, pancreatic and stomach cancers.

Reduced availability of oxygen changes the way cells produce ATP. ATP is the molecule that transports chemical energy within cells for metabolism. Their data showed that as cancers advance, cell proliferation accelerates. They surmised that this is because when the hypoxia (lack of oxygen) increases, cells cannot carry out a process called oxidative phosphorylation to produce ATP, and the cells must use another way to produce ATP. The alternative process available to cells is called glycolysis. This process converts sugars such as fructose, glucose, and galactose in a process that forms ATP. As glycolysis increases, cancer cells accelerate the uptake of glucose from the blood circulation to make up for the lost efficiency in the energy production needed for them to stay viable. This switch in energy sources leads to accelerated cell proliferation and further increased hypoxia, forming a vicious cycle of accelerated cancer growth.

The Organic Answer

The answer to a longer life may be as simple as the healthful exercise and fresh wholesome food derived through working your own organic garden. Organic gardening refers to growing fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, or grains using only natural means. In other words, no pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, or other poisonous chemicals are used in the process of growing food. Instead, the soil is tilled and prepared using gathered mulch, composted materials and only organic fertilizers and soil amendments. Plants are sprouted and grown with the aid of sun, water, minerals from compost, companion planting, and your own loving touch. Organically-raised produce is harvested and eaten with the confidence that it is grown naturally and chemical free.

Fresh organic food straight from your garden is always best in terms of nutritional value. Aside from the use of various chemicals, many commercially grown fruits and veggies are picked before peak ripeness, which also means before their nutritional peak. They do this to avoid spoilage during transport and storage. Within days after harvest, fruits and vegetables begin to lose some of their nutritive goodness. What's more, the longer they sit on the shelf, such as during transport, in the supermarket, and in your fridge, the fewer nutrients they have left to pass on to you.

By growing your own organic garden you give yourself an outlet for exercise, a source of food without dangerous chemicals, and fresher food with better nutritional value. All this helps long term to increase oxygenation of your body, fostering health vitality and a longer life.

Benefits of Compost Tea

ktaverier — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:36:51 +0000

Compost tea is a microbial solution that is used to improve soil structure, and it adds beneficial organisms to the soil in order to help sustain plants. This is a byproduct of compost, and even though it is made from compost, the benefits of compost tea go further than just compost.

Soil is made of many different kinds of microorganisms that plants need to grow healthy. Compost tea is used to help the soil by adding nutrients to it. Traditionally A good compost tea begins with a well cared for compost pile. A well maintained and mature compost pile means that you have turned the compost a few times in order to heat the pile and kill off any weed seeds and pathogens. We have seen many amazing results and increased plant health with the application of compost tea to the phyllosphere of the plants. We have also witnessed time after time that an effective home brewed compost tea is just as much art as it is science. A quality compost tea does not come easy.

To make your own compost tea you fill a bucket half-way with your compost and then the rest of the way with water. You let the mixture brew for three days all the while aerating it with bubblers so that the microorganisms can grow stronger and multiply. It is important to keep the mixture aerated otherwise the organisms will not receive enough oxygen to stay alive. A good rule of thumb here is if the compost tea is properly aerated it will not smell bad. It is also important to feed these organisms. A good way to do this is by adding a little molasses to the mixture while brewing. This will give the bacteria something to feed on and grow. This process is intricate and time consuming, and homemade compost tea must be used immediately on plants otherwise the biology will die.

If this process is not difficult enough think of the workers in the equation, the microorganisms. Most often a properly maintained pile will have a wide variety of microorganisms to do the job but this often means you take the good and take the bad. A compost tea with an imbalance can cause issues down the road.

The main benefits of compost tea over regular compost application is that the tea can be sprayed directly onto plant leaves. This is the reason we tout a diverse compost tea as a foliar spray over a more simple soil conditioner. As a foliar spray compost tea provides the benefits of reducing disease and stress on the plants, and garden.

A leaf is being hampered by harmful microbes. This stress can be halted with the application of Compost Tea

Compost tea makes the benefits of compost go even further. When used as a foliar compost tea can not only decrease the risk of disease but it can increase the breakdown of toxins in the soil and increase the amount of nutrients available to the plant.

Some benefits of compost tea are that it increases nutrient cycling in the area around the roots, it increases water and nutrient retention, it helps the break down of toxins in the soil, it cannot be over applied, it enhances the taste of fruits and vegetables, and so much more.

Compost tea can be applied to plants during any season, though most avid gardeners advise using it in the spring when the plants are really starting to grow. This will give the soil the best nutrients when the plant is still small giving it the best chance to grow.

We have seen many amazing results and increased plant health with the application of compost tea to the phyllosphere of the plants. We have also witnessed time after time that an effective home brewed compost tea is just as much art as it is science. A quality compost tea does not come easy.

What is Soil Conditioner?

mike usry — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:19:41 +0000

What is Soil Conditioner? Most simply put soil conditioner is a substance that can be added to soil to change the soil properties.

We carve out this definition simply to provide distinction and clarity for our customers. In todays “fast green” world we see an over abundance of fertilizers and heavy focus on the chemical inputs but we often ignore the other two categories of soil amendments. At Southland Organics we distinctly divide soil amendments into 3 categories;

Fertilizers - be it organic or synthetic a fertilizer is a soil amendment that provides plant nutrients.

Soil inoculants - are soil amendments that add biology to the soil in order to improve the soil food web. Often these focus on bacteria or fungi but can also include beneficial nematodes and other biology that play key roles in the carbon cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle) or nitrogen cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_cycle). Soil biology plays a tremendous role in a healthy environment.

Soil conditioners - As previously stated that enhance soil properties. Often this is thought of as altering the soil physical structure but that is only part of the effect. Soil properties include many areas such as cation exchange capacity, soil ph, water holding capacity, or or soil compaction.

In classifying a soil amendment we basically evaluate the product based on its impact. Does the product provide nutrients? If so then it is a fertilizer. Does the product deliver biology to the soil? If so then it is an inoculant. If the product does not provide any of nutrients or biology but is deemed as beneficial for plant life then by default it is a soil conditioner. It should be noted that many soil amendments take on aspects of a fertilizer, inoculant and or a conditioner but their objective should be clearly defined.

Soil conditioners repair damaged soil and help maintain the soil quality for plant life. Over time soil will become compacted soil conditioners help to loosen the soil as well as replenish and maintain nutrients in order for the plants to flourish. For the best result it is important to mix the soil and the soil conditioner before planting. Though some soil conditioners do work better when placed on top of the soil after planting the crop.

Soil conditioners may consist of organic matters. These would be the plant and animal remains that are in various stages of decomposition, typically referred to as compost. When compost is added to the existing soil it begins decomposing immediately as it provides an additional rich food source for the microorganisms in the soil. The microorganisms eat the plant and animal remains and eventually die, thus adding themselves to the organic composition of the soil. The end product of this cycle is Humus, which is dark brown or black and will not decompose any further. Humus is important to the condition of the soil because it readily chelates soil nutrients and greatly increases the water holding capacity. By providing organic matter as a soil conditioner we are helping the plants sustain a healthy life. When the soil becomes depleted of organic matter and water tends to drain and the biology is less prolific. Therefore the plants have a harder time sustaining life.

The soil’s ability to hold and release various elements and compounds that plants need for nutrition is through a process called Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC). Soil Conditioners are used to balance out the Cation Exchange Capacity within the different types of soil. Because there are various types of soil, there are various levels of the CEC within each of these different types. Soil conditioners will bind together the atoms plants need in order to grow. They are also able to release the different nutrients at the time when the plant needs them the most. The property of the soil is ultimately changed through the soil conditioner to be the most perfect state that a plant needs to grow.

What is Soil Conditioner?

mike usry — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:19:41 +0000

What is Soil Conditioner? Most simply put soil conditioner is a substance that can be added to soil to change the soil properties.

Fertilizers - be it organic or synthetic a fertilizer is a soil amendment that provides plant nutrients.

What is Soil Conditioner?

mike usry — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 20:19:41 +0000

What is Soil Conditioner? Most simply put soil conditioner is a substance that can be added to soil to change the soil properties.

Fertilizers - be it organic or synthetic a fertilizer is a soil amendment that provides plant nutrients.

Brown Spots in my Yard! #$%!

mike usry — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:28:09 +0000

thanks flickr/merfam

Are you one of those dog owners who loves your pets but hate what they can do to your lawn?

Well, if your answer is "wee wee messieur!" you are certainly not alone in this problem. Many home owners who have dogs are bothered with the effects of dog urine on their grass. When your dog relieves itself on your grass you can expect your grass to turn brown or yellow. If you are trying to maintain a good lawn and an evenly-colored grass, dog urine spots are the last thing you want to happen.

Lately we have been receiving lots of phone calls from people curious as to what causes dog urine grass spots and how our Dog Spot product works to help the problem. When we examine the composition of dog urine to understand just why it has that effect on grass, we find that it is due to the nitrogen in dog urine.

Nitrogen is not completely bad for your grass. In fact, as anyone who has ever applied fertilizer to a lawn knows, the proper amount of nitrogen can be very beneficial for grass. Too much nitrogen, however, is not good for your grass. Your dog's urine is simply packed full of it. Nitrogen is odorless by the way, so just because Fido's pee is particularly pungent doesn't mean anything about his Nitrogen level. Maybe he got into your asparagus?

So what can you do about dog urine on grass? If you catch your dog before or during the act, you might have a chance to stop the brown spots in the lawn. But you can't spend your whole day spying on Fee Fee trying to catch her giving the lawn the business. So you need some other way to prevent the concentrated nitrogen overload.

Of course, we are more than happy to sell you some of our product, but being a transparent organization we believe that also providing a few tips would also be of value to you. Try a few of these remedies to prevent your lovable dog's pee from damaging your lawn.

It's the amount of nitrogen in dog urine that's killing your grass. If you can't stop your dog from going on your lawn, then minimize the amount of fertilizer you put on your lawn. Or you could just use fertilizers that have less or no nitrogen content. Soil conditioners are often a better alternative.
Make your dog drink lots of water every day. Having more fluid in its body makes him produce urine that is a lower concentrate of nitrogen. Every time you find your dog peeing on the grass, you can spray water on the grass area where your pet urinated. This will dilute the nitrogen concentration.
Vary the location of where the dog goes. Female dogs tend to always empty their bladder in one location. Stop this concentrated application by varying her access to certain parts of the lawn.
Apply a specialized soil conditioner such as Dog Spot to the area. The organic acids will bind the nitrogen while the beneficial microbiology assimilate it so that it will not burn your lawn.

Changing your dog's diet will not work. While protein is believed to produce more nitrogen in your dog's urine, lessening the protein content will make an unhappy and unhealthy dog while providing little effect. The best way to eliminate brown spots on your grass is to create systematic habits to prevent them while maintaining a well-balanced and healthy lawn. Excessive nitrogen will always burn your lawn. Make certain that your grass has a wealth of organic acids and beneficial microbiology to handle the overload.

Eliminate Portable Toilet Odors Naturally

Jeff Kures — Sun, 06 May 2012 12:37:12 +0000

Port - Portable Toilet Odor Eliminator is a commercial grade biological odor eliminator and effluent treatment for portable toilets, portable restrooms, marine toilets, holding tanks and camping toilets.

OP-Port is a ready-to-use liquid formulation that rapidly provides improved improved waste degradation. It was adapted from our product designed to meet the needs of municipal wastewater treatment plants. The powerful formula in contains a synergistic blend of new bacterial strains which have been scientifically developed (selectively adapted) to cope with difficult compounds and chemicals present in wastewater effluent.

Unlike any other bio-formulation, OP-Port contains bacterial strains which actually digest difficult and non-biodegradable compounds such as detergents, paper, oil, grease, hydrocarbons, phenols, etc. OP-Port bio-formulation provides exceptional results controlling hydrogen sulfide (that awful rotten egg smell) and other mercaptans odors emitted from the waste water holding tanks. Our substrate is a new and novel, totally organic product that controls sulfide odors by blocking the pathways of sulfide producing compounds. The product is also unique in that it contains micro and macro-nutrients that accelerate microbial activity, growth and performance.

Port is USDA certified organic and was designed under the EPA “design for the environment” program. It is actually beneficial to the environment, and will provide portable toilet odor control.

Environmentally Friendly

Port - Portable Toilet Odor Eliminator was developed in conjunction with the EPA Design for the Environment program and contains the US EPA Design for the Environment Seal.

Port meets or exceeds the toughest regulations in existence today. This proves that Port - Portable Toilet Odor Eliminator provides a powerful "green" solution for odor elimination while protecting the environment.

Going Beyond the Porta Potty

Port - Portable Toilet Odor Eliminator is derived from pure organic and natural humates. The humates have then been infused with powerful microbes and other beneficial live biology to form the perfect biological odor elimination solution. Because our solution is organic it is beneficial to the environment through and through. Once Port leaves the portable toilet, portable restroom, marine toilet, holding tank or camping toilets it continues to provide a great environmental service by binding toxic substances such as hydrocarbons in landfills, waste water holding tanks or any other end destination.

How Port Eliminates Odors

Port - Portable Toilet Odor Eliminator leverages powerful biotechnology combined with the perfect substrate to deliver a superior product. A proven bioremediation agent, Port immediately binds to odor causing molecules such as hydrogen sulfide, hydrocarbons, ammonia and other gasses. The cypress lignin molecules destroy odor causing bacteria by binding their food source. The live biological waste degraders also begin their task in the biological oxidation of waste organic matter. The by-products of Heterotrophic oxidation of waste organic matter include; carbon dioxide, water, new cell mass, reserve energy polymers (bio-film or slime layer), and ammonia.

This explains how Port eliminates odors and does not simply mask them.

Powerful and Concentrated Odor Elimination

Since Port - Portable Toilet Odor Eliminator is a ready to use liquid concentrate it holds much value over the competition. A major benefit in using liquid (live) bacteria over powdered (spore) bacteria is that the live bacteria will start to colonize and go to work immediately whereas the powdered will take longer. The liquid bacteria possess photosynthetic properties which are not available in the powdered forms

The Health Effects of Synthetic Fertilizer

mike usry — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:31:38 +0000

Synthetic fertilizers can seriously deplete the nutritional content of foods. Direct contact or exposure to synthetic chemical fertilizers can kill babies or cause health problems in many people. Remember this the next time you pick up a bag at Walmart. Also, if you have any type of urinary or kidney or liver or allergy or health difficulties, you should especially avoid any type of exposure. The adverse effects of synthetic chemical fertilizers are often underplayed and ignored despite their damage being far reaching. Synthetic fertilizers can cause a vast array of symptoms, some immediate, some signs showing up later, some effects on people and animals are direct, and some effects are indirect. Synthetic fertilizers include many brand names: Scotts, Miracle Grow (owned by Scotts), Shultz, Pennington, TruGreen, etc.

I recently became very interested in the subject after noticing physical symptoms of workers handling fertilizers and the harsh air of a retail garden area. I uncovered a lot information.

In the U.S., generally there are three hyphenated numbers (for example: 15-5-10) on the front label of fertilizer bags representing the percentage of each element by weight in the bag. The elements represented are N, P, and K. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. For example, the expression "15-5-10" means: 15% of the bags weight contains Nitrogen, 5% of the bags weight contains phosphorous, and 10% of the bags weight contains Potassium. Upon further reading on a bag, you will see an analysis of the types of chemical compounds used in order to reach these percentages. In other words, you will see a listing of the chemicals used to reach those percentages of 15-5-10. The synthetic chemicals used to reach these percentages of 15-5-10 can be different in different fertilizers. Some chemicals are more harsh than others, but they all end up being harmful to plants and animals. These components written on the bag are "guaranteed" to be in the bag by law. What is written on the bag must be in the bag. Some states have slightly different regulations. These synthetic chemical compounds can be directly and indirectly harmful in a number of ways. More on that later.

You will notice in the above example that 15-5-10 add up to a total of 30% of the weight of the bag. What is in the other 70% of the bag? It is not disclosed. It does not have to be revealed. It can be just about anything...including, and often, industrial waste. Some things this mysterious 70% could contain are clay, sand, sawdust, perlite, rice hulls, calcium carbonate (to dampen the detonation properties of the Nitrogen's ammonium nitrate), corn cob grit, vermiculite, limestone, sludge, slag, industrial waste. Most people would be skeptical to believe that toxic residues from industry would be used to fill up the majority of a bag of fertilizer. Believe it. It is actually widespread. You can search the fertilizer codes of some states and see (e.g. Kentucky and it's procedures on slag). An independent research group tested fertilizers from only 12 states for 22 toxic heavy metals...and found that these fertilizers contained high levels of these toxic substances. Of the 29 fertilizers tested some were major and popular brands. Lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, barium, chromium, nickel, beryllium, dioxin, etc. can be pretty potent stuff. You can have kids and pets playing on the stuff, people breathing the dust, these toxins getting into the water runoff, agricultural accumulation in soils, plants and vegetables uptake many of these, etc. The metals found in these fertilizers are known or suspected carcinogens, reproductive and developmental, liver, and blood toxicants. In about a five year period, 270,000,000 (270 million) pounds of toxic waste was sent to fertilizer companies and farms according to reports from 44 different states. Regulations are extremely strict if industry wishes to dispose of toxic waste in lined landfills. However, regulations are relatively lax if they transfer the waste or resale it. In other words, the simplest method of getting rid of toxic waste is just to resale it. So, unwittingly we become the consumers who purchase toxic waste to dump on our yards and parks and food crops and feed crops. Also, conventional agriculture is a big culprit in taking all kinds of industrial waste, sludge, and/or sewage sludge and dumping it onto fields as fertilization. To give you an idea of how nutty this can go you can look at a relatively safe fertilizer: manure (when it is composted). Conventional farmers are not required to delay harvesting after applying fresh manure. Organic farmers must wait 90-120 days between application of raw manure and the harvest of any organic crop which may be eaten raw, which allows the fresh manure time to compost and thus, prevent the spread of any potentially dangerous bacteria. From talking with different farmers and ranchers, I was amazed at how gross the dumping of masses of chemicals onto fields really was.

Back to N-P-K. Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium. There are about 92 naturally occurring mineral elements. These are three of them. These are essential for plant cell growth. There are about 10 other minerals which are also essential for plant cell growth, but many other minerals are also very important for healthy soil and plants. Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen are three essential nutrients for plants (i.e. derived from water and carbon dioxide). Their respective percentages in a whole plant are roughly 45%, 44%, 6%. Compared to the percentages of these nutrients and the percentages of all the other minerals; Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium actually have relatively low percentages. However, these three elements have been over-played and over-emphasized with the commercial, synthetic fertilizers for a variety of reasons. It should be noted that there is a natural balance for healthy soil and healthy plants which includes microbes and the environment. When the synthetic and unnatural force feeding of chemicals occurs, the balance gets out of wack and problems occur. So, adding just these three elements is as nutty as feeding your children only cheerios, milk and juice. In fact, these three elements added synthetically can dramatically upset how plants can absorb other necessary mineral elements. These are only 3 of 13 essential elements, but there are many other important ones also. It is not a natural, balanced diet for plants.

I should mention that weeds serve a natural function in that they often grow where soil is less alive or in hardship. You will see weeds sprout up like crazy on bare exposed earth or in soils not properly balanced. Often weeds will pull up minerals and nutrients almost in an attempt to restore a balance. You probably notice sand burrs in sandy soils lacking humus. Or you might notice the graded lot with bare exposed soil lacking in its topmost fertile layers become prolific with weeds. Fortunately, some farmers now have curbed their plowing and exposing of nutritious soils by a "no-till system". Mother nature has weeds there to balance some of the offsets. I am not promoting weeds, but just explaining some factors which bring about weeds, and thus, use of these extremely toxic herbicides. When soil does not have good health, one can expect weeds. Synthetic fertilizers do more to offset the natural balance than to restore it.

Nitrogen (when forcibly fed to plants) is known for promoting rapid excessive green growth (much like steroids in a human). Nitrogen is the big player in commercial fertilizers. The appearance is a rapid lush green growth when applied on the lawn. This certainly could drive sales of commercial synthetic fertilizers. However, this is not what it seems. This action actually causes harm to plants and animals in a number of ways.

Commercial synthetic fertilizers boomed following World War ll. Ammonium nitrate had been used for munitions and explosives during the war (e.g. the Oklahoma City bomber had about 5,000 pounds of fertilizer in his Ryder). An outlet for ammonium nitrate producers was found in the fertilizer marketplace. Ammonium nitrate is a major source of nitrogen for synthetic fertilizers.

Ammonium nitrate (NH3NO3): Ammonia, a base, is extremely toxic to humans. It has a sharp penetrating odor. Nitric acid is mixed with ammonia to form a salt, ammonium nitrate. Ammonium nitrate can easily have reactions if exposed to a variety of metals (e.g. iron, zinc, copper), acids, alkalis, solvents, oil, grease, etc. You will notice that bags of fertilizer are often plastic coated and sealed in order to keep contaminants out and gases in. Storage alone will give off ammonia. Introduce heat to fertilizer and there will be further instability. The release of toxic fumes is one of the main hazards associated with the decomposition of Ammonium nitrate. Exposure to ammonium nitrate can cause eye and skin irritation and burns. Inhalation exposure can result in irritation of the nose, throat, and lungs. One can also experience nausea, vomiting, flushing of the face and neck, headache, nervousness, uncontrolled muscle movements, faintness and collapse. Because ammonia or nitrates combine rapidly with water, feeling dehydrated is common. Lips will become dry. The next time you handle or are exposed to chemical fertilizer, you will probably notice some of these symptoms. Because the accumulation of ammonia in the body can quickly lead to death, the urea cycle in humans is extremely important.

Nitrate is converted to a very toxic substance (nitrite) within the digestive systems of human infants and also different livestock and poultry and birds. During the first few months of an infants life or in some baby animals or in some adult animals there exists a bacteria in the stomach which changes the nitrate to nitrite. Nitrite is extremely toxic and reacts with the hemoglobin in the blood to cut out the oxygen supply. It does not take a whole lot of substance to start producing toxic reactions. A baby will suffocate if not given immediate medical attention. Signs are parts of the body turning blue or the blood turning chocolate brown. These signs occur with both humans and animals. Some livestock will go into convulsions and then die. Pregnant mothers should also dramatically avoid fertilizers. Also, you certainly would not want to expose any of your young pets (or some adult species) to fertilizer. As a baby gets older, the hydrochloric acid in the stomach kills off the bacteria which changes the nitrate to nitrite. It should be noted that the bacteria which convert the nitrate into the deadly nitrite can exist in adults to various degrees.

Nitrogen: Nitrogen is an essential constituent of proteins. In humans, when our proteins (amino acids) breakdown, the nitrogen waste from the protein turns to ammonia (NH3). Ammonia is very, very toxic, but the liver along with other body functions quickly convert the ammonia into a less toxic substance, urea [(NH2)2CO]. While urea has some toxicity, we excrete it when we go to the bathroom or sweat. However, the body is set up to process and handle nitrogen waste only at a constant rate. If there is too much nitrogen waste for the body to handle at one time, you will notice that you start to feel poorly. The highly toxic ammonia content starts to buildup in the body (and possibly the less toxic urea buildup if there are difficulties with the kidneys or other body systems). You might personally observe this at those times you eat too much in proteins, such as meat. A person will start to feel kind of lousy and kind of poisoned in an odd sort of way. Some bacteria and parasites in the body also can dump toxic ammonia into the system causing similar symptoms. So, you can imagine how stressful this is on a body's system when nitrogen from fertilizers enters the body through the air, skin, or ingestion. The body can only handle so much at a time. Also, ammonia can easily affect the brain which lacks the enzyme essential for changing it into urea.

Synthetic fertilizers can contain any number of chemical combinations of nitrate or ammonia or urea or other chemicals to satisfy the N-P-K. On the label below the numbers (i.e. below â??15-5-10â??), you will see the chemicals used, primarily water soluble mineral salts and phosphorus. Close relatives to ammonium nitrate may be used to satisfy the nitrogen content (and perhaps the P or K content). Urea may also be used. However, this urea is the synthetic version made from ammonia and carbon dioxide. Some chemicals listed on a bag of fertilizer could be calcium nitrate, sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, urea, ammoniated super-phosphate, triple super phosphate (probably one of the most harmful to soil quality), potassium chloride, potassium sulfate, potash.

As an aside: sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate (sometimes called saltpeter) have many similar characteristics and chemical properties. Gunpowder is made by adding sulfur and charcoal. This salt has also been used â??to quiet sexual urgesâ??. Normally, meat turns gray when cooked. This (or the nitrite form) is what is often used to keep meats pink, even though the meats may have been cooked during processing. You will probably see it as an ingredient on the packages of many foods (hot dogs, bacon, pepperoni, etc). To a certain degree it does inhibit bacteria. In food it can be beneficial to inhibit bacteria, but in soil it is one of the worst things you can do. However, there are many more effective and safer ways to inhibit bacteria on foods. The primary use of this salt in foods is to keep color. It takes 10 times the amount which inhibits bacteria in order to achieve this color preservation effect. Sodium nitrite has been shown to cause cancer as a result of its reactions in the stomach. Of course, you just read the data about how the body processes nitrogen or the toxic effects of nitrite. It is kind of hard to believe that this substance is still prolifically put in foods primarily to make them sell better. Sodium (or potassium) nitrate can really irritate the respiratory track with a shortness of breath if the dust is inhaled. It can cause all kinds of gastric and stomach pains, dizziness, bloody diarrhea, convulsions, headaches, mental impairments, redness or itching on the skin or eyes, collapse.

Feeding nitrogen to plants: The air is about 80% nitrogen. In nature, this is where the nitrogen nutrient originates. It can be brought into the soil by rain, other plants (such as legumes: alfalfa, clover, peas, etc.), other organisms (such as blue-green algae or microbes), the decay of other green plants, etc. There are about 50,000,000,000 (fifty billion) microbes in a tablespoon of healthy soil. Many more near the roots of plants. Their primary job is to breakdown organic matter and to also feed plants. You could have every element in its proper proportion available in the soil, but without the microbial action plants would not be able to utilize them. Synthetic chemical fertilizers actually inhibit, kill and alter this natural microbial activity which is so very important to healthy plants. In healthy soil there are herds of microbes near the roots of plants which out-compete pathogenic species and form a protective layer on the surface of living plant roots. Microbes are essential in making minerals available to plants and they also retain large quantities of nutrients (such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, etc.) in their bodies which helps to prevent these nutrients from being leached or washed away. Some microbes eat the dead cells of other microbes thus retaining the nutrients within the soil. In the natural process, predator organisms which eat other microbes get too much nitrogen in relation to the carbon that they require. It takes 30 parts of carbon to assimilate one part of nitrogen in a normal soil. When the predator microbe consumes excessive amounts of nitrogen, it is released into the soil as nitrate. Plants can only use nitrogen in the nitrate form. (For example, ammonia nitrogen can not be accessed by plants until it is broken down into the nitrate form by microbial action.) Nitrate is very, very, very water soluble. Remember this point when you read further down.

A variety of consequences occur when plants are forcibly fed too much nitrogen, especially in the direct nitrate forms you have seen in synthetic fertilizers.

The plant can absorb only so much nitrate. Nitrate dissolves very easily in water. But the real clincher is that it is EXTREMELY difficult to remove from water. So, the excess nitrate gets washed away. It does not filter out of water through the soil. I will repeat that point. Generally, the farther water travels through soil, the safer it becomes as contaminants are diluted or filtered out. Nitrate is the exception. It can ruin well water and one would have to dig a new well where no nitrate leaching has occurred. Older folks like me have watched our vibrant and clear creeks, streams, rivers, and lakes change over the years. In fact, in Texas it is now illegal to eat fish caught from many of our waters because of their toxicity. This is largely due to the amount of chemicals we put onto our soil. Nitrate is in your tap water (and perhaps bottled water). It is not removed by filtering, boiling, or softening. Treatment for nitrate removal from water is very complicated and expensive. My personal consideration is that this is a method in which synthetic fertilizers can harm people or pets and soil in the long-term, overall picture of things is extremely damaging.

There is another consequence with synthetic chemical fertilizers. This is probably the worst effect of all.

An incredible interaction and activity exists with plants and microbes and other organisms and the environment. This processing of organic matter, nutrients and minerals is immensely complex and delicate. It is almost laughable to think that one can throw three elements in the form of synthetic chemicals onto the soil and say: Now I have balanced the mineral and biological and ion and ph and microbial content of the soil. The exact opposite occurs. Microbes are destroyed or inhibited in their balance when synthetics arrive. Microbes help to provide proper ph. Organic material alive with microbes is electrically charged and so there is ion action. The artificial force feeding of these three elements throw the balance of other minerals and nutrients completely off within the plant. This stresses the plant, making the plant deficient in nutrients. Stressed plants attract diseases and pests. That is nature's way of handling the sick. Then, because the plant has bugs or a fungus, someone comes along with a chemical pesticide or fungicide in order to try to remedy the situation. In fact, many soil microbes directly attack and kill insect pests, and many also directly fight off plant diseases. An example is sulfur uptake into the plant can be inhibited by artificial fertilizers. Fifty years ago in the United Kingdom, the dairy cows did not really have a problem with lice. More natural methods of fertility were used. But now there is a problem with these type of exterior parasites. You may have seen over chemicalized soils appear colorless, bleached or salty. The carbon fraction (the humus) gets burned up in the assimilation process of nitrogen. Synthetics can change the ph and tie up beneficial elements, but also can start to cause toxicity levels of other elements. Artificial inducement of one element can cause all kinds of weird bonding to occur with other elements. This all translates to the foods which we eat. With naturally grown foods, you do not have to worry about pesticides or herbicides, but probably the best benefit of organic foods is their nutritional content. The difference can be dramatic. This includes livestock and poultry which are fed naturally grown grasses and food. Nutritional content is markedly different. As a culture, we are becoming more and more nutritionally deficient and filled with toxic residues as an indirect result of synthetic fertilizers. This stresses the body making it more prone to health problems.

In other words, synthetic fertilizers can dramatically diminish the nutritional value of foods. Since synthetic fertilizers also diminish the natural disease-fighting and pest-fighting mechanisms, our foods thus become laden with other chemicals (pesticides and herbicides). So, we end up with foods which are lacking in viable nutrition and also loaded with residues form other chemicals. This kind of activity is not healthy for humans or animals. This consequence is probably the worst of all, especially in light of the fact that more natural methods of growing plants are easier, more economical, and more viable.

I should mention that the probiotics of fresh vegetables alone can help a person. In other words, when eating fresh greens, you can obtain beneficial microbes in a way that is similar to yogurt's beneficial microbes.

Composting Toilet Smell

mike usry — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:24:55 +0000

The Georgia Appalachian Trail Club recently asked Southland Organics to provide a simple presentation to explain the how our Port product works for composting toilets. The trail club uses the term "mouldering toilets" but you get the point. Anywho . . . we thought that we would share the slides with you. See the attachment pdf below.

Attachment:

Composting Toilets