We are what we eat

The Beauty of Compost

“Water is rapidly becoming our most precious resource. Countries will wage war to secure supply (if that is already not happening). The use of compost is a premium water saving strategy. It contains around 25% humus and it also promotes the humus-building organisms in the soil (many of them whom are desperately in need of some help). Humus can store more than its own weight in water and the building of organic matter levels, can make a tremendous difference to your soils utilisation of irrigation water or a rainfall event. In fact, the difference is staggering! If you can build your soil humus levels by just 1% then your soil can store 170 000 litres per hectare that it could not previously store. That equates to 17 litres per square meter! Remember that this is the water the plant can access at will. There is no energy required to deliver that water and there is no evaporation factor (like dam storage). It really is the ultimate in water storage and the efficient water delivery system. In addition, any carbon that we store in the soil, as humus, is not returned to the atmosphere (as part of the carbon cycle), where it is causing so many problems. Building 1% humus in the soil actually binds up to 50 tonnes of CO2 per hectare that would otherwise be thickening the greenhouse blanket. Growers will soon be paid for this stored carbon and this will prove a remarkable win/win situation. In fact there are so many benefits associated with humus building, it is a shining example of a bountiful universe that responds in kind – it is a thing of true beauty.” NTS-SUSTAINABLE FARMING NEWS.

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