Posts Tagged: compost
Herb-infused manure nourishes contentment
After a hard life - which included multiple divorces, alcoholism, drug addiction, the loss of a young son and bankruptcy - specialty fertilizer producer Denise Ritchie is now finding gratification by rescuing dairy cows before slaughter and using manure to create biodynamic compost.
Ritchie's story was featured this week in a Los Angeles Times Column One article by Martha Groves. She and her husband Randy purchased a dairy cow at auction last August. The animal was christened Bu, ensconced at a friend's organic dairy farm near Fresno, and became the namesake for the Ritchies' "Bu's Blend Biodynamic Compost."
According to the Times article, Ritchie stumbled upon and was inspired by the biodynamic process, which mixes organic principles with cosmic spirituality. The Ritichies believe their compost emanates "energetic life forces to vitalize vegetables, plants, flowers, lawns, gardens, farms and our earth," according to their website. While much of mainstream agriculture is unconvinced about the value of biodynamic tenents, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Glenn McGourty sees their value.
"There are lessons for all of agriculture in some of the basic agronomy that biodynamic farmers practice," McGourty was quoted in the story.
Bu's Blend is sold in about 50 California nurseries, running about $20 for a 1.5 cubic foot bag, easily double the cost of other organic composts.
"You're healing your soil with this stuff," the story quoted Sarah Spitz, a KCRW producer and a graduate of the Los Angeles County UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program.
The LA Times story says the Master Gardener became a customer of the fertilizer after studying various approaches to gardening and concluding that biodynamics "was the purest, healthiest and cleanest system." Every seed she has planted using Bu's Blend, she told Groves, has sprouted and grown "big and beautiful."UC studies the use of compost to restore burned areas
Scientists at UC Riverside will apply compost to wildfire-ravaged land after the flames have been doused to determine whether it helps reduce erosion and water pollution and restore vegetation. The project is one of several to be undertaken with funding from the California Integrated Waste Management Board aimed at finding uses for what is expected to be an abundance of compost made from organic waste diverted from landfills, according to a story in the April issue of BioCycle.
The Waste Management Board plans to cut the amount of organic materials now going to landfills by half in the next 10 years. Meeting that goal will require an additional 15 million tons of organic materials to be recycled annually.
The Riverside scientists will quantify the benefits of compost on fire-damaged land by absorbing water, thus reducing surface flow, and by dissipating the energy of rainfall. The study will also attempt to quantify the ability of compost to promote the growth of micro and mesofauna (microbes, worms, insect larvae) in the fire-damaged soil, the BioCycle story says.
Another UC Riverside study funded by the Waste Management Board is focused on using the compost in strawberry, lettuce and tomato production.
Developing crop-specific compost specifications helps farmers avoid using mismatched or poor quality composts, which could result in lower crop yields, according to the article.