Food Crop Fertilizer Features (Gulp!) Human Urine

Well, this is news to me........ apparently scientists in Finland have researched and concluded that human urine mixed with ashes provide an excellent fertilizer for SOME crops:

From the link:

Scientists in Finland have found that wood ash and human urine perform just as well as more expensive mineral fertilizers, at least for some crops, while doing less damage to the environment. The combination is rich in nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The researchers raised a healthy crop of tomatoes in a carefully controlled series of laboratory experiments.


Other research has shown that human urine is an effective substitute for synthetic fertilizers, at least for cucumbers, corn, cabbage, wheat and tomatoes. Ash has also been shown to be useful in agriculture.


But the Fins say they are the first ones to combine urine with wood ash, and plants treated with that substitute performed four times as well as unfertilized plants and left the soil less acidic. The scientists insist it's safe and doesn't pose "any microbial or chemical risks".

Link to story


So what do you think? Worth trying? Seems worthwhile to me, although I'm currently using a very rich source of fertilizer -- powdered seaweed.

Sort of a new spin on not having a pot to __________ in, isn't it? It seems to me that a person employing this fertilization strategy wouldn't even have to ummmmm.... store the urine -- they'd just have to store the ashes. I can see having a mixing area, and first thing in the morning....... presto! Fresh fertilizer, and a pretty much sterile one at that!!

Now, to really test this, and I suppose I will, I'll have to have at least three groups of six plants -- 18 plants in all, say tomatoes -- and all from the same seed packet.

Group 1 - no fertilizer

Group 2 - powdered seaweed

Group 3 - Urine-based fertilizer


Now......... could I skip a step and just place ash on the surface of the planter and "dispense" the liquid catelyst? Past history has suggested to me that human urine on the leaves of plants has a detrimental effect of their growth.

what the hell were they thinking?
some people drink their own pee, now we get to eat them?

[edit on 10-9-2009 by platipus]

Originally posted by platipus
what the hell were they thinking?
some people drink their own pee, now we get to eat them?

[edit on 10-9-2009 by platipus]

wow, backup, 'some people drink their own pee?' , why do you do that ?
Is it good ? Warm or Cold ? !Pee on the rocks ??

I guess the ash is reducing the acidity in the urine and making it plant friendly. It makes sense really and I don't know why it hasn't been done before.

I feel so bad now that I'm flushing 2 very good sources of plant nutrients.

Urine is fertilizer. Dung is fertilizer. Rotting flesh is fertilizer.

Life is a cycle. The waste from plants allow animals to survive. The waste from animals allow plants to survive. Its a perfect cycle, with each half feeding off the other half, wasting nothing, providing plenty for all. The only 'ick' factor here is in the human mind.

If you have ever used a septic tank, you will remember how much greener and faster-growing the grass is over it. You can usually locate the field lines by the high grass.

Anything that is absorbed by a plant is broken down into its constituents before being 'used' to make more plant. the same thing happens when we eat food; the food is broken down chemically and then used as raw materials. Eating a carrot will not make your skin turn bright orange. Eating a snake will not make you grow scales. Eating a grape will not make you purple (except for the juice stain in your mouth afterwards ).

Plants absorbing nutrients which were once a part of someone's urine does not make them part urine.

My fertilizer is a combination of animal waste and dried grass compost from a rabbit hutch, ash from where I burn brush, and yes, I like to take a wizz in the garden from time to time. Human urine is a bit of a repellent to deer. I'd rather have the food from my garden than that synthetically bloated mass of industrial waste they sell in the produce department any day.

Now as far as drinking urine? Ummm... someone else tell me how that turns out for them, K? I'll be sucking down a nice cold Mountain Dew.

TheRedneck

Ever eat mushrooms? They are grown in a mixture of urine and feces.