What’s in this article?
- A brief Introduction
- Why use this product?
- What are the various uses?
- How to use it for Mass multiplication, As a Bio fertilizer, As a Bio Pesticide,
- For Seed Treatment,
- how to make DIY micronutrient fertilizer using this product.
Currently, about 2 billion metric tons of waste is produced annually worldwide and only about 5 percent of this is recycled for composting. This means the waste is not managed properly and instead either dumped or openly burnt which can be really bio hazardous. To overcome this problem, the NCOF, ministry of Agriculture, India, developed a great product which is a consortium of micro-organisms, mainly azotobacter isolated from desi cow dung. And this took 11 years to standardise the mass multiplication technique at the farm level.
So, What is this Product Called? This is called WASTE DECOMPOSER. This is perhaps the world’s cheapest bio fertilizer and bio pesticide made till date. This product comes in a bottle of 30 gms costing just 20 INR per bottle, that’s less than 20 cents for international viewers and you need to buy only once because you can easily reproduce or do mass multiplication of this product and use it repeatedly for ever. A single bottle of waste decomposer decomposes bio-waste of more than 10000 metric tons in just 30 days and this bottle has a shelf life of 3 years. This is unbelievable.
So, Where to purchase this waste decomposer bottle? You can order this online from NCOF website or even amazon and these links below. International users can possibly import this product.
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Spjj7G
NCOF website: https://ncof.dacnet.nic.in/
Now let’s learn how to use Waste Decomposer?
The first thing you should do is perform mass multiplication of waste decomposer. There is nothing sophisticated about it. It’s really a simple process. I will show you step by step.
Take a Large Plastic Barrel like this one, preferably a 200 litres container. You can take even 100 litres or whatever you have.
Fill this drum with water.
Now add 2 kilograms of Jaggery for 200 litres of water or 1 kilogram for 100 litres. This is the food for these microorganisms.
Now take 1 bottle of waste decomposer and pour all its contents. Make sure you avoid direct contact of its contents with bare hands. Mix it thoroughly using any stick or any pipe.
Then cover the container with a cloth. You need to open this daily and stir the solution once in 24 hours.
After 5 days or max 7 days depending on the climate, this solution turns creamy which means now you have 200 litres of water decomposer ready to use.
We will discuss on the uses of this solution shortly. To restart mass multiplication, now you don’t need to buy waster decomposer again. After use, Just leave around 20 litres of this solution in the barrel and add water again, then add jaggery again and repeat the procedure to maintain this for ever.
Now let’s discuss on The Various uses of this waste decomposer:
1. SEED TREATMENT: Simply spray or sprinkle waste decomposer solution uniformly over the seeds. You can even soak the seeds if you are doing this on a large scale. This works on all types of seeds. Keep the treated seeds in shade for about 30 minutes and then plant the seeds. Seed treatment with waste decomposer shows 98% early and uniform germination and provides protection against various seed borne diseases and also plays a role in strengthening the plants defence mechanisms.
2. FERTILIZER AND SOIL TREATMENT: Watering with waste decomposer solution significantly changes the biological as well as the physical properties of all type of soil within 21 days of application and it also helps to generate earthworm population in the soil which is so beneficial. You can dilute the waste decomposer in 1:2 ratio with water, that is one part waste decomposer to 2 parts water and water your plants once every 15 days or even once in a month. This is also proven to control many soil borne diseases in crops.
3. FOLIAR SPRAY: It acts as a potent bio pesticide when sprayed on plants.You need to dilute it to 1:3 ration to use it as a foliar spray. This helps control a variety of fungal, bacterial and viral diseases in crops when sprayed once in 10 days for 4 times in the growth cycle of a crop.
4. COMPOSTING: This is a compost accelerator and your compost will be ready within 30 to 40 days depending on the type of waste used for composting. For conventional pile method of composting, you need to sprinkle waste decomposer for every layer of compost and maintain the basics of aerobic composting like maintaining moisture, aeration by turning the compost pile and stuff like that. You can check my 4 episode series on composting from a link in description below. If you do composting at home in small scale, you can sprinkle waste decomposer solution once or twice and get that compost ready within 30 to 40 days.
Now, Let’s prepare the DIY micronutrient rich organic fertilizer using this waste decomposer, as recommended by the national centre for organic farming.
The basic principle of making this micro nutrient fertilizer is: Adding foods that are rich in proteins, vitamins and major and minor elements including Nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, iron, copper, zinc, calcium, magnesium, boron and so on. Adding these into the waste decomposer results in break down of these elements into soluble forms by the microorganisms, enzymes and organic acids present in waste decomposer.
Well, Now let’s prepare this fertilizer and learn how to use this for your plants.
First of all – Things You Need: We will prepare this in around 25 litres of waste decomposer solution. Do not worry too much on the quantity and over dosage. This is not a problem with organic fertilizers.
1. Atleast 3 varieties of Oil seeds like 100 gms each of sunflower seeds, mustard seeds, flax seeds, or any other like soya, castor oil seeds, nigella seeds or any 3 varieties.
2. 3 varieties of Pulses or lentils of your choice like Red Lentil (Masoor dal), Yellow or Green split gram (Moong dal), Bengal gram (Chana dal), You can also take Red gram (Arhar dal), Black gram (urad dal) and so on.
3. Some 4 to 5 old iron nails or any small pieces of junk iron stuff.
4. Some copper source – like some old copper wires extracted from wires lying in your junk yard or any old copper vessel if you have one.
5. Some Zinc source – like one or two dry cells which are made up of zinc container.
Firstly, powder these seeds and pulses, this helps in faster decomposition. Add these into 25 litres of waste decomposer. Now add iron nails, then copper wires, then the zinc source. Mix it well and leave it for 10 days. Do not forget to stir this once daily.
After 10 days, your potent nutrient rich organic fertilizer is ready. So, How do we use this. You can use it in 2 ways. One, as a liquid fertilizer to water your plants and secondly as a foliar spray to instantly feed your plants through leaves stomata.
For watering your plants, you need to dilute this to 1:5. That is one part of this liquid to 5 parts of water. Where as for foliar feed, you can dilute this to 1:10 and spray thoroughly on your plants including the undersides of your leaves, because the stomata or the leaf openings are more concentrated at the bottom side of leaves.
When plants and animals die, their molecules become available in soil for use by other organisms like bacteria and fungi. This product is the final break-down constituents of the natural decay or decomposition of plant and animal materials through the biological activities of micro-organisms. This product is commercially available in powdered form as well as liquid form for horticultural use.
How does this work on plants? It chelates the complex nutrient compounds in the soil to convert them to simple forms suitable for plant absorption. This reduces the fertilizer usage by upto 30% and increases flowering and fruiting by up to 70%. So, this is not a fertilizer, but a bio-catalyst and bio-stimulant for the plant. This is an excellent natural and organic way to provide plants and soil with a concentrated dose of essential nutrients, amino acids, vitamins and trace elements.
Before I reveal you the name of this product, let’s quickly know some of the functions or benefits of this powder.
- Improves Soil Structure by providing more space for root growth and beneficial microbial activity. They bind to soil molecules and improve soil structure, and this is especially noticeable in high-clay and compacted soils.
- Reduces Soil Toxins: They don’t just make nutrients easily available for absorption, but also chelate harmful toxins in the soil, preventing them from entering the plant.
- Increases Water Retention in soil by reducing water evaporation by upto 30%.
- Improved Microbial Activity in the soil and chelation of complex nutrient forms to simple forms for better uptake by the roots makes the plant grow healthier with little fertilizer application and increases flowering and fruiting.
Having said that, let’s know what this is called and how to use it properly for best results.
This is called Humus which consists of three components–humic acids, fulvic acids, and humin.
This is available as powdered form and also liquid form. The Liquid is a concentrated humic acid and needs to be diluted with water before applying on plants. Humic acid is easily available at your local garden store or you can even order online.
PURCHASE LINKS:
Now, Let’s learn how to use it. This is particularly beneficial if your plant has nutritional deficiencies due to poor absorption of nutrients from the soil, which manifests as various leaf yellowing patterns.
So, How to use this? Three Methods to use this:
- Soil Application: The Dosage is 1 teaspoon per litre of water. Mix it well and water 1 cup, that’s about 250 ml of it per plant. If you are using liquid humic acid, add 3 ml of it per litre of water. You should see results within 1 – 2 weeks.
- Foliar Spray: You can add one teaspoon of this per gallon of water and spray on the plants. 1 gallon = 3.78 litres. Please check the usage instructions on the product label and use accordingly. If you are using liquid humic acid, add 1 ml per litre of water for foliar spray.
- Compost Tea: You can add 1 teaspoon per gallon to your compost tea while brewing. This will certainly help in better absorption of nutrients. For beginners, Compost tea is made by adding compost like decomposed cowdung or vermicompost into water and allowing it to brew for 5 to 7 days and then you dilute this further like in 1:10 ratio and water your plants.
Before you throw away banana peels to trash, think twice! Banana peel is one of the highest organic sources of potassium. Potassium helps your plants by strengthening the stems and protects them from disease. It also helps the flowering process and is thought to be able to improve the quality of the fruit of your plants. Also in addition to potassium, it also contains phosphorous and calcium which are equally important for plants.
Let’s start the recipe for making banana peel fertilizer and then banana tea.
For Making Banana Peel Fertilizer:
- Collect some banana peels, preferably from ripe bananas.
- Next step is to dry these peels. You can dry whole peels or cut them into pieces for faster drying. You can sun dry them for atleast 2 days so that they become crisp and should break easily when you crush them. You can also dry them in microwave oven if you do not have adequate sunlight.
- Then once they are crispy and black, crush them to make a powder. That is it!
- This powder is our banana peel fertilizer powder.
- You can add one table spoon every 15 days around your plant and then water your plant. Preferably raking the soil before application is recommended. You should see some positive results within 3 months.
Then For Making Banana Peel Tea:
- You can take some banana peels and cut them into small pieces of any size.
- Add them into a bowl or any container.
- Add water to the container to soak these peels for atleast 3 days. All the nutrients from banana peel, mainly potassium is released into this water.
- You can discard the banana peels and use this banana tea in 1:5 dilution to water your plants.
Adding or burying raw banana peels directly into the soil around plants is not recommended, because its not only attracts insects and maggots but also it takes a long time to decompose and in its process of decomposition, it might even steal away nitrogen from the soil and your plant might develop nitrogen deficiency.
Well, Last year, we prepared a Mixed fertilizer containing both chemical and organic fertilizers with a detailed discussion and calculations on how to calculate the total NPK value. For beginners and those interested in these scientific calculations, please check out that article.
Now, we will quickly start the recipe for this well balanced organic mixed fertilizer, you can use for any plant in varying dosage to produce healthy growth, increase flowering and fruiting. We will also total the NPK value of by adding the NPK values of each of these components. For beginners – NPK means Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium which are the Major nutrients required for plant growth.
- COW DUNG: Whatever animal
manure you are using, whether horse dung or cow dung or even goat dung. Note
down its NPK value. Here we are using decomposed
cow dung. So NPK is 3-2-1.
We are taking 2000 grams of cowdung powder.
- COMPOST (
Whether home made compost or VERMICOMPOST): In this recipe, we are adding
vermicompost which also contains many useful trace elements, so no need to add
that micronutrient powder containing trace elements. The NPK of vermicompost is
1.78, 0.77,0.94
We are taking 2000 grams of Vermicompost.
- BONE MEAL POWDER, you can also use any of the other meals like sterameal, fishmeal or bloodmeal. If you are a pure vegetarian, you can use soya bean meals as a substitute for bone meal. So the NPK for bonemeal is 3.5, 18, 0
Here, will add both bone steamed meal
powder as well as coarse bone meal chips powder mixed. This fine powder is just
to make it quicker for release of nutrients.
We are taking 1000 grams of Bone meal powder.
- we shall also add some optional stuff into this for additional fortification which also act as soil pesticides or pest repelling agents, particularly neem cake powder or Karanj powder. Then we will also add Mustard cake powder. We will discuss the benefits of each of these some other time.
Well, the first one Neem Cake Powder: NPK of neem powder is here:
N(Nitrogen 2.0% to 5.0%), P(Phosphorus 0.5% to 1.0%), K(Potassium 1.0% to 2.0%).
N – 2.0% to 5.0%, P – 0.5% to 1.0%, K – 1.0% to 2.0%
We are taking 1000 grams of Neem cake powder +
1000 gms Karanj Powder +
- of Mustard cake powder.
- Optionally, You can add 500 gms of Epsom Salt + 500 Grams of Micronutrient Powder to include those trace elements or micronutrients like Mn, zinc, Fe, boron and many others to safeguard our plants from any deficiencies. Also you can add more ingredients you wish to like used tea powder and any other stuff, because this is a one time mix and you offer this on a periodic basis and only once in 15 days or so and you add almost all organic nutrients and this reduces burden and saves you a lot of time, plus this become a quality mix!.
Nothing to worry about over dosage which is an issue with chemical fertilizers which can cause chemical burns. This is pure organic fertilizer with hardly any adverse effect on over dosage.
After Approximate Calculation, the Total NPK value of this fertilizer mix is:
22, 25,07
Have a look at this equation in the table:
| Ingredient | N | P | K |
| Cow Dung (3-2-1)-2000g | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| Vermicompost -2000g | 3.5 | 1.5 | 2 |
| Bone Meal -1000g | 3.5 | 18 | 0 |
| Neem, Mustard etc | 9 | 1.5 | 3 |
| TOTAL | 22 | 25 | 7 |
Then optionally you can perform a soil PH test and mix either woodash or lime to make your soil more alkaline if its too acidic and if your soil is too alkaline, you can add alum powder into this mix.
And one more important point from storage point of view: you might feel some moisture in this mixture due to some moist ingredients like vermicompost. You can either use completely dry ingredients before mixing or you can dry this mixture in sunlight and then store in air tight containers. It will not loose its NPK value much on drying. Remember to mix the ingredients thoroughly well for best results.
RECOMMEDED DOSE PER PLANT? Depending on the plant, you can use one tablespoon once every 15 days, specially for flowering plants and once in a month for other plants. Make sure you apply this after tilling or raking the top soil and apply around the plant – not directly on roots.
Check out the Best Pure Organic Pesticide Recipe.
Many studies and research articles on goat dung as a fertilizer have been published on international journals. All of them say, Goat manure is one of the best animal manures for healthy soil and plants, specially for backyard organic vegetable gardening. And if you have couple of goats with you for their milk or whatever purpose, you should never throw away their droppings. You will learn a lot of important stuff about goat dung by the end of this video. Please watch it till the end and learn how to use it and how much to use in your home gardening or container gardening.
This is even available online at amazon. You can CHECK HERE.
So lets begin:
-
- Goat or sheep pellets are very much Dry compared with cow dung or horse dung. Hence these are very easy to collect or store.
- It is Virtually odourless and hence easy to work with and easy to spread on your soil Directly. You cannot directly apply cowdung or horsedung without decomposing, because this can burn your plants.
- Its relatively Free of insects and maggots unlike cow-dung. But drying in sulight for 2 to 3 days before using or before storing is always better.
- It’s a Cheap and Best Organic Fertilizer for your plants: As I said earlier, the pellets can be used for direct applications to flower and vegetable gardens without the fear of getting your plants burnt.
- Goat pellets contains lots of nutrients, the Major NPK elements – Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium, and many trace elements like Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Manganese and many others. The Nitrogen value may be higher than cowdung or horse dung especially when these goat pellets are mixed with goats urine, whether by default or by using some goat beds specially created to increase its nitrogen value. In this case, composting this prior to application is recommended.
- This manure Increases Flowering and Fruiting and Promotes overall Plant growth. Goat droppings can be used in nearly any type of garden, including that of flowering and fruiting plants or
- Use Goat dropping in your compost bin. It not only enriches your final compost value, but also it decomposes very faster. This is because pelletized droppings allow more airflow into compost piles, which speeds up composting time as well.
- It’s a Low-cost Pure Organic Fertilizer for your vegetable gardening. You can get it for almost free specially when you visit any rural area or you can also get it for free in cities. You know how I collected these pellets? These were collected during the Bakrid festival where you see lot of sheep brought into the city and homes. You get lots of this to collect and save for the whole year. For me this is the most important benefit. Because I never use any chemicals for my vegetable gardening, not even a chemical pesticide. Well..
- Goat dung is also an Excellent soil conditioner: you can mix it while making your potting mix, similar to how to add decomposed cowdung into your mix. You can watch a related video HERE.
- Mulching: for beginners, A mulch is a layer of material applied to the top surface of soil to prevent moisture evaporation, reduce weed growth like grass clipping, twigs, wood chips, bark chips, dry leaves, hay and so on..
One Caution regarding Fresh Sheep dropping or any animal manure for that matter – Just because goat manure is a natural product doesn’t mean it’s completely safe. They can release disease causing microorganisms into the food chain that can make you sick. So better always sun dry completely for 2 -3 days before application or compost it and then use.
Now How to use and how much to use? This is an organic fertilizer. So you can use it similar to how you use cowdung or horse dung. A handful of this on a container once every 15 days for flowering plants or Once in 30 days for your other general plants. Make sure you Apply this after raking or tilling the top layer of your soil.
So, there we have it folks, that was a short article on goat or sheep dung as fertilizer in gardening.
References:
https://scialert.net/fulltextmobile/?doi=ijss.2007.142.147