So this topic had me going through research papers all weekend as I didn't believe the use it while it fresh mantra as there's no rational other than "new is good old is bad" which didn't hold up. Everyone does it in the summer, but we talk about how much nutrient's we could get over a year then only apply 40% of it over a year if where diligent. Plus it's obvious the solutions of tomorrow are sitting under our nose today, and to get things up to solution proportions time is naturally going to be expanded.
So I went hard on the reports, I was trying to understand the conditions and stages of nitrogen breakdown as much as reconstitution. Just a comparison of sealed container vs open to the air makes such a major difference is losses or gain's it's hard to swallow any overhanded statement's with no backup. One thing I can say about fresh vs converted "old" is the margin of error for the uninitiated.
All this talk about wood ash had me buzzing about what sort of composting behaviors could occur in the urine mixed with what would normaly make lye if put in the wrong amounts in the wrong place. Also knowing how
fukuoka described the damage to the spider population from spreading ash dust over the
land, I had to wonder if these two combined could collapse the time issue and the flash alkalinity all at once. So more of the mineral's and nutrient's of ash could be put into the soil without the ph blowout and the damage dusting does to the insect population.
Well without regurgitating the details without request the basic gist of aged sealed urine which goes into a amoniacal nitrogen state is it too also becomes highly alkaline making the problem worst. Bacteria convert that unavailable amoniacal nitrogen into nitrites and nitrates just like the basis of the aquaponic's systems, so how do we compost "bacterial activity" the store'd urines nitrogen into the ready plant form as it's original fresh urea loaded urine. We also want to bolster it's nitrogen with the potash and potassium of our wood ash so it's available.
This is where I have my solution but it has it's statistical roadblocks to go through. I thought if I mixed the ash with woodchips dry then added urine as it became available until full, I could bring the ph down and compost the lot anaerobically for a few weeks with a chunk of compost in it to introduce a
boost of bacteria. What I don't have is a ph calculator, something I can say 1 pound of ph 4 + 1 pound of ph 11 gives me ph 5 etc... Basicaly I don't know how to multiply logarithm's, has anyone come across an online calculator in this kind of formula. All the ones I find seem to be more concerned with how much ag pro chemical x your have to add per sq ft to get an effect, but where not dealing with soils yet, where trying to brew up an inoculate, the kind of thing you add a cup of to the potting soil mix you can feel confident about like worm compost.
I remember one
experience this summer, I had filled a
bucket with hay and rabbit poo stuff to the brim, then I poured urine on it and added water to infuse it into the mulch. As usual I left it for over a week instead of a day, and when I went to apply it, the urine smell was gone and everything smelled lacto fermented, it was like pickled hay with pooballs in it. It wreaked yes, but was nothing like the smell of jug's of urine and water sloshed together. If it only takes 3 days for a little bit of salt and whey to turn a jar of tomatoes into salsa, I could see the salt in the urine and it's natural breakdown bacteria's having the same effect.
None of my plant's got mad, and later in the year as the poo fizzled down I did get the most growth I had ever had so far out of my 2 inch deep garden bed over spruce mulch. It turned out to be the biggest yield in the 3 year's we moved here. I can't attribute it to that alone I made compost tea once a month and I added "woodchip" compost to it which isn't great but it turns 2 inches into 4. But for me it was really that nobody died, nothing wigged out, and the soil is no longer hydrophobic.
I mean I have a past of killing things in 1 leaf spraying, anytime i mess with additives I screw something up terribly. But somehow I put picked mulch everywhere and the worst conditions thrive the best "in spite or because of it"
Adding the
carbon via the sawdust is more a way of locking up the goodies so they don't leach. But can it be effective in the battle of ph, as with anything I like knowing going crazy with something can't hurt, all that's at risk is efficiency.
I have never worked with sawdust before just woodchips, and that was a journey into the depth's of compost to break down fresh chipped cedar, pine, and hemlock into soil over the winter. Most of the chips where composted 3 times over just to get blond chips to be black and odorless. This winter I got the
rocket stove, the table saw is pouring out the sawdust, rabbit's are pooping up a storm, and I'll
pee in anything everytime if I think i'm taking part in a home brew inoculate.
So anyone have any experience with sawdust ph and decomposition that could chime in on the urine wood ash buzzing that's flying through our heads. I don't want to start playing mad alchemist by adding sulfur to the equation to bring the ph down as that's an off system element I can't produce. But is the ph of sawdust low
enough to bring the high ph of ash and aged urine back into the realms of 6.5-7?
1
ops: 
Ok, leaves is good as we're in Autumn. Thanks
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