[USCC] on farm composting

[John A. Crockett]

I am certainly in favor of NEIGHBOR AND ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBEL on farm
composting, and the emphasis has to include the neighbor and environmentally
responsible part.  www.compostalert.com is an example of what can happen
when a neighbor is unhappy.

Just because passively aerated windrows are popular does not mean that it is
good technology.  The ONLY way to KNOW that you have a massive population of
active microbes composting for you is to assay that population of active
bacteria and fungi. The only way to know that compost is really aerobic, is
to do cross section profile oxygen and/or CO2 monitoring, and having the
meters say that the oxygen is over 15% and/or the CO2 is less than 4%. Five
percent oxygen is not going to prevent massive anaerobic activity, the
oxygen has to be over 15%, and preferably over 18%.  And, for the assaying,
I BELIEVE that the samples have to go through the staining and be counted
under the microscope within an hour, two at most, of the sample being taken
from the host composting mass, that assaying a sample that spent a day in a
zip lock bag, in transit to a lab, will tell a lot about how the microbes do
in compost, in a zip lock bag, and may not tell much about how microbes
perform in the composting mass of interest.

We have no incentive to publish our research findings in peer reviewed
scientific journals, or to speak at conferences., in fact, the contrary,
what we've learned through our hands on research, working with compost, is
our greatest asset and competitive advantage. When people intern in our lab,
they learn a great deal, very quickly, hands on.  SOME of the information is
on our website, on the page on research.  I look at our TempScan computer
screen across the room from my desk, and I see temperature data from 32
thermocouples, data that is being updated every second.  I've probably
replicated rate of air flow through compost over a hundred times.  I know
that if we neglect to turn the compost which serves as our Dynamic
Bio-Filter system, that we can get foul odors, and that when we turn and
re-hydrate that material, it works wonderfully.  While we appreciate the
$75K grant assistance that we had in 1999-2000, that helped us start
intensifying our research, since then we've invested many times that, in
further refining our research.  While research is expensive, we believe that
hands on research is far less expensive than the alternatives.

>From my perspective, which is limited; we need a lot more professionalism in
the composting industry, a lot more commitment to excellence; and real
commitment to being a great neighbor.

I know, from repeated hands on research, that we frequently need to supply
over 10 times the volume of compost, in fresh air, every hour, to hold the
CO2 level in the off-gas at or below 2%. (that's food composting, not
leaves) I know that so far we've never assayed over 3 billion active
bacteria, per gram, dry weight, of compost, when the CO2 level was over 4%.

Working Together to Create a Sustainable Environment,
John A. Crockett, a.k.a. Dr. Mike Robe
Mother Nature's Farms, Inc.
(845) 225-7763
http://www.magicsoil.com/
jac at magicsoil.com