I would check, double check, and triple check, then check again the dilution rate if you're trying to acheive a particular controlled N delivery. Straight urine can burn, no doubt.

The biggest problem I see is the variable output content, you'd have to plan for the richest and hope for the best, or find some way to test N content and adjust accordingly. Secondly would be making sure you're not overwatering your lawn (following the deep and infrequent 1"/wk). Your plan sounds decent (every 8 days), but just be careful in what you actually practice in applying.

But hey, if you've got the ganas, more power to ya! Please report back how it goes. I'm sure plenty of people (myself included) can look past the ick factor if it delivers results.

-Jeremy

Maybe, maybe not. But if you spread the word that you are doing it, it will sure keep the neighborhood kids off of your lawn.

:)

If you do this and you do not apply all the coffee grounds at once, you will notice a green hairy mold growing on it later on. Ignore it. Mix it in when you are ready to apply the next time.

You can apply coffee grounds any day of the year, any time of day, rain or shine, hot or cold, no matter what else you may have applied that day or week. The result you should see will take three full weeks from the time you apply. The result will be a very dark greening.

Wrong, you use a slow release urea made in any ratio you want. As a landscape pro I would reccomend a Lesco 15-5-10 25% PPSCU 2FE product number 081964

"Human urine makes an excellent high nitrogen liquid fertiliser for most plants. Dilute it 10 to 1 and pour it over and or round fast growing plants once a week; like vegetables, Green manure crops and sugar cane. Indeed just about anything that you want to push along rapid green growth

Studies indicate that each person’s waste fluids can provide enough nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium to grow a year’s supply of wheat and maize for that person. According to some studies, human waste can be an even more effective fertilizer than animal manure.

Urine, which comprises 90 percent of human waste, contains about 80 percent of our waste’s fertilizer value. It can be applied to field crops without treatment because it is generally sterile. By the way "fresh urine" does not contain any bacteria, unless the person has a urinary tract infection, so you could even use it to wash out wounds without causing any infections,

Human urine can be used as an alternative to chemical fertilizer to reduce pollution in air, water and soil and help avoid or control other environmental hazards which surface due to the use of chemical fertilizer, Human urine contains nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium at a much higher ratio than in commercial fertilizers and is environmentally safe to use.

If you want to use urine to fertilize your gardens, keep in mind that when urea becomes ammonia, it also becomes volatile and part of it strips into the air. Both ammonia and nitrates are also very soluble and if not picked up by plant's root systems can enter groundwater with the irrigation water. So it would be best to keep gardens moist but not over watered, but these are similar problems faced by people who use other forms of fertilizers.

One advantage in using urine, as a fertilizer is that much of the urine is available in ideal chemical forms: nitrogen is in the form of urea (ammonia/ammonium which is present at concentrations of approximately 3.5 g/l), phosphorus as superphosphate and potassium as an ion. Urine is almost free from heavy metals - for example, cadmium - because even if we ingest them, they will tend to bind to the liver and kidneys, making the urine much lower in such contaminants than commercial fertilizers.

Urea outside the body quickly becomes ammonia and will be oxidized by special bacteria (called nitrifiers) into nitrates. All these 'reactive' nitrogen sources can be used to form amino groups for new amino acids, thus then being made into proteins."

We have not yet gotten to 'timing'. Timing, as we know, is everything, so we're not at that part yet.

Oddly, I'll use Milorganite and don't blink when the dogs go out there. Very strange.

As I noted previously, this could have benefits.

I suggest he put a big sign in his yard, "This lawn is fertilized with untreated human urine."

My guess is he'll never have any problems with people taking short cuts through his yard or even walking their dogs there.

Ha! True, although I personally wouldn't have a problem walking through a yard on which somebody else's urine had been used. As long as I were assured that they didn't have a bladder infection or urethral issues at the time of the...donation.

It's the idea of my own that squicks me out. Although, if it were sterilized, the idea no longer bothers me...even though I know it's already sterile and I'm infection free.

There's a very interesting and peculiar blind spot I should think about...if thinking about it didn't also squick me a bit.

Trying to coordinate the collection, possible dilution, application and timing for over an acre of lawn is a tall useless feet.

If the money required to fertilize your yard is an issue and I understand that it can be, then you could probably find some part time employment and invest less time then this would require and meet your needs even if you want to go organic.

Well, that is the beauty of the plan. He can go door-to-door in the neighborhood taking collections!

If you think about it though, to Morpheuspa's point, we spread Miloganite on our lawns, which is worse on the yuck factor, because that's someone else's poo. :) At least this would be my own urine. Diluted with a hose end sprayer, it really shouldn't create a stink.
I'm going to try it out for a couple days on a section of lawn and see how the urine fed lawn looks vs the urineless lawn. I have a thermos under my desk at work today, which I'm using to collect the "liquid gold" for dispensing when I get home tonight. I'm estimating it wouldn't take long to spray the liquid gold each day using a hose end sprayer set wide open. A couple minutes a day?
Of course you can take this whole being "green" thing too far. But imagine a zero input lawn, no chemicals, totally fertilized by urine and mulch mowing with a push reel mower.

It's the biology of this that really interests me. How much nitrogen do we flush away? Would the lawn be as healthy as an SBM lawn? What about the salt in urine? If one was willing to invest the time each day, could urine be a substantial part of a healthy lawn fertilization program? Just thinking outside the box....

Are you cooking your pee to 800+ degrees. Didn't think so. IMO this is a complete waste of time as there is no way you can drink enough beer to fertilize 1-acre, it is like peeing on a house fire.

Let's see, one acre is roughly 43,500 square feet, or 43.5 thousand square feet, requiring 174 lbs of N through the season (4 lbs/K/season).

Calculating urine at 10% N (it does vary, that's the high number), that's 1740 lbs.

Urine's specific gravity is 1.0 to 1.05, which is close enough to water not to matter, since the N percentage can vary.

Assuming you NEVER collect it when you've eaten asparagus...

One gallon weighs about 8.33 lbs, assuming around 20 Celsius. It ain't coming out of you at that temperature (closer to 37), but that's near enough since we don't know the precise value of N.

1740 lbs of urine equals 209 gallons. Recommended dilutions are 10:1 to 20:1, so that's a lot of water, too.

209 gallons is 27.8 cubic feet (using a standard of 62.4 pounds per cubic foot). That's a cube more than a yard on a side.

That's a lot of pee. The numbers don't bear that out as realistic. Add in the salt content (in addition to the urea itself, a salt), the wildly-variable pH (4.5 to 8), and the wildly variable N content (5% to 10%) and I don't think I'd bother with it.

Instead, I'd buy nice, cheap IBDU if I wanted to go that path, realizing that neither are going to do diddly for my soil.

I just saw this. Dude, you're sitting at work peeing in a thermos? I'm glad I don't have the next desk over. ;-)

On the other hand, given the expense of organic feeding this year, and given that there are people out there with some v-e-r-y different turn-ons, you might be able to take a video of that and sell it, using the cash to purchase SBM.

Now that's organic.

1 liter = 1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs. Assuming 8% Nitrogen concentration, that is 0.177 lbs produced per day. Over a 150 day growing season, that is about 27 lbs. For an acre of lawn, you would want between 120 and 160 lbs for the year. That means you would need 5 very committed friends to make your plan work. Of course, you wouldn't want to spray liquid fertilizer on a lawn in the middle of summer, so you probably would need 5 friends in spring, 0 in summer and 10 in fall.

Don't use up all your friends in this plan though, because you'll probably need someone to move in with when your wife tosses you out after hearing this plan.

In my admittedly limited experience, if they'll give you their pee they'll probably let you crash on their couch.

Interestingly, soil bacteria apparently rapidly process this stuff, as I've never detected any odor. No problem with burning the plants that I've seen.

Urine is a perfectly viable fertilizer, IMHO. Just don't let it sit in a container too long, though, as bacteria will begin working on it and making it smell real bad. I've had personal experience with that during a "trip" to Afghanistan in '02. Our tent was about 100 meters from the nearest latrine; during severe storms, or freezing weather, in the middle of the night, it was often easier to relieve one's self into a water bottle and dispose of it the next day! A few idiots let the stuff sit around for a little long, and it got quite ripe!

Thanks for the fun post.

Cheers

LMFAO, good stuff

redneck grower lives in paradise.

:-o

YUCK!!!!!!!!!

Just because you Can do these things SHOULD you? If someone is that concerned with nature, organics, green living etc. they might as well let the grass grow thin or thick no soy bean meal etc as nature intended alond with all of the weeds, insects, encroaching forest as nature aslo intended.

and me I'll just use synthetic fertilizers or nothing at all and use the restroom like the rest of modern civilization.

Except on long trips, of course, when even I have been known to Fertilize Nature.

Wow, this post is fun!

Apparently it's BETTER than synthetic on cabbage crops, producing more robust growth although the nutritional value is the same. Here's the news story from researchers in Finland...

and the abstract of the research paper...

Use of Human Urine Fertilizer in Cultivation of Cabbage (Brassica oleracea)
––Impacts on Chemical, Microbial, and Flavor Quality
Surendra K. Pradhan,*† Anne-Marja Nerg,† Annalena Sjöblom,‡ Jarmo K. Holopainen,† and Helvi Heinonen-Tanski†
Department of Environmental Science, University of Kuopio, P.O. Box 1627, FIN-70211 Kuopio, Finland, Västanfjärd Municipality, Lammalavägen 105, FIN-25830 Västanfjärd, Finland
Received June 18, 2007
Abstract:
Human urine was used as a fertilizer in cabbage cultivation and compared with industrial fertilizer and nonfertilizer treatments. Urine achieved equal fertilizer value to industrial fertilizer when both were used at a dose of 180 kg N/ha. Growth, biomass, and levels of chloride were slightly higher in urine-fertilized cabbage than with industrial-fertilized cabbage but clearly differed from nonfertilized. Insect damage was lower in urine-fertilized than in industrial-fertilized plots but more extensive than in nonfertilized plots. Microbiological quality of urine-fertilized cabbage and sauerkraut made from the cabbage was similar to that in the other fertilized cabbages. Furthermore, the level of glucosinolates and the taste of sauerkrauts were similar in cabbages from all three fertilization treatments. Our results show that human urine could be used as a fertilizer for cabbage and does not pose any significant hygienic threats or leave any distinctive flavor in food products.

It's user friendly, repels pests such as aphids, not as labor intensive as making compost...

"Patrick Makhosi, also a soil scientist with Kawanda Agricultural Research Organisation confirms the efficacy of human urine as a fertiliser. He says that applying urine once every week for at least two months will more than double the yield of vegetables."

They even give instructions for safe use...

Apparently you've never been to where "the rest of modern civilization" actually lives. All over the world, lot's of open sewers, elimination outdoors, no plumbing, and yes, using human waste on food crops. I've seen all that in Guyana, Afghanistan, parts of Africa, Pakistan, Nicaragua, and other places I've visited. I wonder where rural Indians, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc. poop and pee? Bet a lot of them don't have a 'restroom' like you and I would describe it.

I think composting human feces and using urine on the lawn is a great use of resources.

Have a keg party and lock all the doors...I think it will keep the coyotes away as well....

Potatoes.....nothing but potatoes. For breakfast, potato pancakes...no syrup allowed.
For lunch, potato fries.....no salt....no vinegar, no ketchup.
For supper mashed potatoes...sans the butter and the milk.

That's exactly what you are expecting your lawn to live on....straight nitrogen.
What about its soil needs....the phosphurus to expand its roots; the potash to strengthen the roots to stand up to adversity....and yes, the nitrogen for green strong growth.

I assume you will be applying it in its natural form..a liquid. Liquids have a habit of running where it wants to go....not where you think it should go.
On heated ground, it will evaporate much before gaining entry. Where it congregates in puddles, it percolates..in time, down to where the tender roots are....and if the nitrogen is anything like what a dog can do....
voila, you have killed what was once a great looking lawn.

If you cant afford giving your lawn what it needs, then maybe you should consider stopping smoking, eating less desserts, not drinking alcohol, .....heck....you could feed your lawn all the fertilizer it needs and not tell anyone....you could stop paying for the internet.

Also, rip up the lawn....put down clover....there you go, it takes nitrogen right out of the air. Its green, doesn't need feeding, looks good....and,if you have to go, then it stands up to urine.

I think I've solved your problem......and the neighborhood's wondering where all that smell is coming from.

So I will oblige... mainly for redneck grower, because he asked...

Most synthetic fertilizers are petroleum based, and most of our organic fertilizers require petroleum to plant, harvest and ship them to the final destination. Its a matter of a national security to reduce our use of petroleum products.

Hence, one of the most patriotic things you can do is to reuse your own waste...

Thanks for the link to The Humanure Handbook! It's great! If you haven't visited the link yet, perhaps the following chapter titles from the monograph will arouse your interest:

Crap Happens
Waste Not Want Not (I used the same quotation in another post to this thread)
Gomer The Pile
When the Crap Hit the Fan
Global Sewers And Pet Turds
Fecophobia and the Pathogen Issue
Fecofrigginfobia
Environmental Potty Training 101

Cheers!

"From the squatting position, I request a copy of the Humanure Handbook."

"Thank you for your wonderful book about an environmental threat most people are unwilling to discuss, yet contribute to daily."

"I have taken three dumps since finishing the Humanure Handbook, and all of them have been in plastic buckets and have been covered with sawdust."

"I am stupefied after reading your turdly book! What a masterpiece of modern literature."

"Your book was extremely well-written and answered all the questions I had been having for several years. I knew that somehow there was some missing info about what to do with all the ‘do-do'."

"The book is extremely moving, in all sorts of ways."

Here's another book:

Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants

To my neighbor who I saw pooping in his yard yesterday - w4m

"Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well." -The Book of Proverbs 5:15

Here's a news article about how the Swedes are getting phosphorus from their urine:
"And it looks like we might have a looming shortage of the former, which could be solved by recycling the latter. 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 fertilizers. "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." Apparently all new homes in the local council of Tanum, in south-west Sweden, are required to have urine-separation toilets. That is the pee goes down one tube, and poo another. She goes onto say, "Sweden has set a national target that 60% of phosphorus in organic waste, including sewage, must be recycled. At least 30% of that goes to fertilise agricultural land." The Prof is calling on drought plagued Australia to realise "a revolution in sanitation, as dramatic and far-reaching as the construction of London’s sewers during the Industrial Revolution." But first she believes the country needs to escape the poo taboo of outta sight, outta mind. Via ::UTS and ::ABC"

"PS. Source separation for pee and poo has long been a design factor in some brands of compost toilet, because it speeds up the rate of dry composting of human waste, giving the toilets greater capacity. "

Here's a link to the story about how we may run out of phosphorus in the next 50 years.

(!)

;-)

Paul

Long live pee

I read this entire thread at 2 am and I could not stop cracking up for at least half an hour.

Long live pee"

You read it at 2:00, laughed for at least half an hour, then posted about it at 2:13.

Let's do the time warp again.

1. Free
2. Prevents eutrophication
3. Makes the right people go "eww"

Using your urine as a fertilizer on your plants isn't going to clean up the gulf oil spill or reverse global warming but it is a positive and progressive practice.