Human Urine As A Safe, Inexpensive Fertilizer For Food Crops

[Hannah Bell]

Researchers in Finland are reporting successful use of an unlikely fertilizer for farm fields that is inexpensive, abundantly available, and undeniably organic -- human urine. Their report on use of urine to fertilize cabbage crops is scheduled for the Oct. 31 issue of ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Despite the 'yuk!' factor, urine from healthy individuals is virtually sterile, free of bacteria or viruses. Naturally rich in nitrogen and other nutrients, urine has been used as fertilizer since ancient times.

Urine fertilization is rare today. However, it has gained attention in some areas as farmers embrace organic production methods and try to reduce use of synthetic fertilizers.

In the new study, Surendra K. Pradhan and colleagues collected human urine from private homes and used it to fertilize cabbage crops. Then they compared the urine-fertilized crops with those grown with conventional industrial fertilizer and no fertilizer. The analysis showed that growth and biomass were slightly higher with urine than with conventional fertilizer.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008093608.htm

[MrMickeysMom]

1. This explains the Sci-Fiction "Star Trek replicator" theory!

Everything replicated was really a bio-product of reconfigured waste!

You gotta love Star Trek writers. They came out with a technical manual that was pretty plausible on how the Enterprise worked.

[joshcryer]

13. Antoine Lavoisier deserves credit for that, actually.

Science fiction writers merely took it to the logical ends. :hi:

[MrMickeysMom]

29. Then, kudos to him!

:hi:

May we live up to it!

[msongs]

2. this info is widely available on the internet....pee diluted to 10% and it needs to be fresh lol nt

[MattBaggins]

44. Fresh? Letting it ferment for a few days is better.

[BlueJazz]

3. I suppose this will be the ..ah..."Number one" source for organic fertilizer.

[xfundy]

4. Yep.

But it can burn plants if not diluted. I think I recall a recommendation of water 90%-10% pee.

Another thing that bugs me-- the earth has an unlimited supply of methane from human waste. Why isn't that used to generate energy? I think some town in Europe is doing that.

[sharesunited]

5. Don't crap in the garden, though. That's decidedly unhealthful.

[shanti]

40. honeybuckets?

from wiki:

The use of human feces as fertilizer is a risky practice as it may contain disease-causing pathogens. Nevertheless, in developing nations it is widespread. Common parasitic worm infections, such as ascariasis, in these countries are linked to night soil, since their eggs are in feces. There have also been cases of disease-carrying tomatoes, lettuce, and other vegetables being imported from undeveloped nations into more developed nations.

Human waste may be attractive as fertilizer because of the high demand for fertilizer and the relative availability of the material to create night soil. In areas where native soil is of poor quality, the local population may weigh the risk of using night soil.

The safe reduction of human waste into compost is possible. Many municipalities create compost from the sewage system biosolids, but then recommend that it only be used on flower beds, not vegetable gardens. Some claims have been made that this is dangerous or inappropriate without the expensive removal of heavy metals.

[Hannah Bell]

63. human manure used to be the main source of fertilizer in a lot of the far east.

up to the us occupation in japan.

and i think there is still some use; at least the honeybucket men come to collect it regularly (a lot of people still have non-flush toilets), even in cities. i lived in two houses that didn't.

[Hannah Bell]

52. not if you compost it right, per this guy:

http://humanurehandbook.com/

[lumberjack_jeff]

61. A better use might be an activator for compost.

http://journeytoforever.org/compost_make.html

[snagglepuss]

6. Wouldn't urine from people taking antibiotics or other drugs be harmful to use?

[Maru Kitteh]

16. And what about Viagra?

Sure it's fun for the stamens but what about the poor pistils who just want to sleep after spending all day in the garden?

[dipsydoodle]

21. Just makes the stems

stiffer. :rofl:

[Aerows]

64. Oh now that was a pun

You win on puns, today LOL.

[snagglepuss]

7. My long departed uncle's expression for taking a whiz was "needing to go

outside and water the cabbage". Maybe that theory isn't so new.

[Historic NY]

17. No wonder them weeds never died off....

:rofl:

[MattBaggins]

45. It's not new

They still use urine in many parts of Asia.

[underseasurveyor]

8. From 'healthy' individuals

Healthy people yes but I would not include, even if they're generally healthy, a person that takes birth-control or hormone replacements, anti-psychotics or anti-depressants, or viagra, or lipitor, or regularly uses antibiotics, or....
The list goes on and on.

Finding healthy people that don't take some sort of regular medication might be hard to find these days. There's a friggin pill for everything and it's going to come out of the body. Perhaps this will work in Finland but here in the US? I wouldn't be a supporter of it.

[The Midway Rebel]

9. The article mentions only cabbage.

I will not be experimenting on my root crops.

[Blue-Jay]

10. So why do my neighbors get mad when I piss on their azaleas?

[riderinthestorm]

11. 10 Acres Enough. A great read with an anecdote about a German family who prospered doing just that

Using their collected body waste, diluted to fertilize their fields before they had enough livestock to do the deed (as it were). They were an immigrant family who were basically starting from nothing as tenement farmers.

I read this book decades ago, lent it out (where it promptly was NEVER returned).

Here's an Amazon link but it's got a lot of terrific info even if it was published in 1864!!

http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Acres-Enough-Classic-Independent/dp/048643737X

[MiniMe]

12. But yet, my dog has killed all my grass by urinating on it

:shrug:

[Hannah Bell]

14. "diluted"

[ChoralScholar]

15. Not mine. The area where my dogs pee grows mutant supergrass.

if you let it go, some of the weeds will grow to be as big around as your finger. I'm not exaggerating a bit. It takes me a while to mow it, because it gets so thick.

[lonestarnot]

23. Must be boy dogs, as the bitches urine kills de grasse.

[ChoralScholar]

34. Nope. Girl dogs. Old ones too.

Ginger-roo and Julie-ulie. Ginger is 11, and Julie is 9.

Here they are, pretending they like each other:

[MattBaggins]

46. I have a male dog and brown spots everywhere

I'm thinking of collecting his piss and bottling it as a new Round-Up

[Aerows]

67. He's probably not getting enough water

It has to do with water content more than nitrogen content.

[Aerows]

66. That's a myth

that women, particularly those having their period, produced acid that would kill plants. That's why some societies sent women away when menstruating. Not true, because my female cat pees in the garden and we have great crops, and I've certainly handled plants while menstruating.

I don't understand why that constantly gets brought up as a "fact", because there are plenty of explanations why one person could piss on a plant and kill it, and one person could piss on a plant and nurture it - like the water content in their system. Many women retain water just before they menstruate, and that doesn't mean that they shouldn't drink water. They should drink MORE water.

[JoeyT]

33. Any nitrogen fertilizer will burn plants if you put too much.

I've seen people kill entire fields with regular commercial fertilizers or organic manure fertilizers.

Any fertilizer that doesn't have a chance of burning if you put too much won't feed plants either.

[Retrograde]

35. Too much nitrogen also promotes vegetative growth - i.e.leaves

at the expense of fruit, as I learned the year I put composted chicken manure (high in nitrogen due to quirks of avian anatomy) directly on my tomatoes. Lush, tall, leafy plants with barely a tomato fruit in sight.

It's old news: before modern chemistry people used urine for a number of purposes, including cleaning wool (fulling: urea helps remove grease) and setting dyes. It's easy to collect and there's a never-ending supply of it.

[reorg]

18. it's called "ecological sanitation"

Where I work, all waste water is reused in various ways, including urine and feces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_sanitation

[WinkyDink]

19. MMM---MMM! Gotta love the taste of psychotropic drugs in my tomatoes!

[dipsydoodle]

20. I recall an old Victorian gardening book

I came across in the sixties. It provided instructions for the "servants" to empty all urine into a metal tank ideally located at the end of the garden, backyard to you lot....lol, and it was to be left to stand ready for use as a fertiliser.

[xchrom]

22. Pee on your compost pile for way better compost. Nt

[Fly by night]

26. This is indeed a great way to get the benefits of urine into your Garden.

Cycling it first through your compost pile speeds up the decomposition of other materials in that pile, eliminates odor and keeps urine from direct contact with your veggies (probably wouldn't hurt them if diluted but would definitely damage them if not).

I've been doing this for years and my Garden and Her earthworms are much healthier for it. Also saves fresh water for its intended purpose (keeping us hydrated).

[malaise]

24. Decades ago I had a neighbor who grew the most delicious tomatoes

and beans - she told us that her fertilizer was nine-day old urine.

[bluestate10]

32. Make sense. As urine is allowed to sit, it concentrates, making Urea yield higher. nt

[Vinca]

25. Oooh . . . I'm giddy! The money I'll save on my garden!

Watch out cabbage seedlings . . . here I come.:rofl:

[IDemo]

27. Anyone who's seen the movie "The World's Fastest Indian" knows this

[formercia]

28. Salt buildup

too much of a good thing.

[bluestate10]

31. Commercial fertilizer provides Urea without some of the other ingredients that

come with human urine. I don't see any advantage other than those people's biases assign.

[formercia]

38. Urea is a cheap source of Nitrogen

but it needs soil organisms to break it down to where the plants can utilize it. Pee is far from a balanced fertilizer.

[Hannah Bell]

55. Many soil bacteria possess the enzyme, urease, which catalyzes the conversion of the urea molecule

Many soil bacteria possess the enzyme, urease, which catalyzes the conversion of the urea molecule to two ammonia molecules and one carbon dioxide molecule, thus urea fertilizers are very rapidly transformed to the ammonium form in soils.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea

[formercia]

56. Warm temperatures help

Putting pee or Urea on cold soil isn't very effective. Nitrate is much preferred, since plants can utilize it directly.

[Hannah Bell]

59. i'm assuming temperatures are reasonably warm during the growing season?

[formercia]

68. In the Spring, when the ground is still cold

Cold-tolerant crops, such as Cabbage, may not gain much benefit from Urea application. Nitrate is the preferred Nitrogen source until the ground warms and soil organisms become more active.

[bluestate10]

30. The key substance is Urea. Why is it any more natural from human urine than

from extraction methods used commercially?

[QC]

36. It's good for starting up a composter, too. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

53. thank you for that.

[Kablooie]

37. It's also a refreshing beverage on hot summer afternoons.

[barbtries]

39. it is hard for me to get over that ick factor,

but given time i guess i could. i guess. ick.

[roamer65]

41. Eh, piss on it.

Sorry, just couldn't resist that euphemism.

[eShirl]

42. "virtually sterile"

interesting phrase

[uppityperson]

49. Sterile inside you until you pass it at which point it isn't.

At least most of us, inside our bladder our urine is sterile. Once you urinate it is not though.

[eShirl]

50. But when a urinary tract infection is cause by a kidney stone blocking the ureter,

where does the infection come from? When my husband was hospitalized for this a couple months ago I asked his nephrologist this very question; he said that urine is not actually sterile, but not usually to the point of causing problems as long as it's being regularly passed out of the body.

[uppityperson]

51. True, hence "virtually"

[eShirl]

58. exactly...

[SoDesuKa]

43. Fraternity Boys For Hire - Just Provide Beer

All the time that fraternity boys have hosted keg parties they've been neglecting an important recycling opportunity. You provide the Schlitz, they'll provide what it takes to make cabbages grow big and healthy. They won't mind at all.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

47. Suprising considering what human urine deposited by OCTA patrons has done to my lawn

I guess I just need to turf my lawn with cabbage?

[StarsInHerHair]

48. someone tell people in Africa this, also stop the World Bank from forbidding

the use of any fertilizers. I wonder about the real world tho, not everyone is healthy, what could happen?

[Hannah Bell]

54. not sure, but i would guess that letting it sit in the sun would take care of a lot of the bacteria.

i don't think urea + heat is a good growth medium, just guessing.

[Canuckistanian]

57. Urine is a source of Phosphorous, too. Which we're running out of.

Cynthia Mitchell, an Associate Professor from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS), figures we are quite literally flushing a fortune down the toilet, while global ground reserves of phosphorus are unlikely to last more than 50-100 years. And human urine, of which we pass some 500 litres per year, is rich in phosphorus, a key ingredient in agricultural fertilisers. “Urine will soon be too precious to flush down the loo,” Professor Mitchell said. “Already in parts of Europe urine separating toilets are being introduced.”

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/p_is_for_phosph.php

[pipi_k]

60. It's also a pretty good substitute

for chicken stock in a lot of recipes.

Lends a delicate but snappy flavor to Chicken Fricassee

[lumberjack_jeff]

62. Good way of getting out of hosting holiday meals. n/t

[pipi_k]

69. hee hee

:evilgrin:

[Aerows]

65. I know for a fact that my outdoor cat

pees in the garden. We've had great hauls of potatoes, collard greens and radishes. The turnip greens didn't do well.

[Buns_of_Fire]

70. It also cures athlete's foot. No, really. My neighbor told me that.

He said that, if you have athlete's foot, just pee on your feet next time you take a shower and it'll clear it right up. Worked for me!

So, I've learned from this thread (and elsewhere) that pee is:
...good for plants (when diluted 9:1),
...an unwanted grass killer (when not diluted 9:1),
...a good compost starter,
...a refreshing summer beverage,
...a reasonably good substitute for chicken stock, and
...a cure for athlete's foot.

This stuff is TERRIFIC! I'm gonna patent it and bottle it like Dr. Bronner ("DILUTE! DILUTE!"). Make a million. Retire. Hire servants to pee for me...