Waste decomposer (from India) Queries

I became aware of this product and this forum very recently and reading stuff here it seems you guys seem to really know your stuff so here are  my questions :

1. Is it too good to be true ? It's been made from our indigenous cow manure and since it is considered holy to us, my people can be a tad overenthusiastic about this.

2. Has some analogous technology been developed in other countries ?

3. Have any Indians here tried it and what were the results ?


Basically it's a microbial culture from a government institute from India.
http://vikaspedia.in/agriculture/agri-inputs/bio-inputs/bioinputs-for-nutrient-management/ncof-waste-decomposer

The guy who made it is touting every sort of benefit you can imagine from it in every crop. (Micronutrients production from rocks, gram germination, mushroom production, protection from winter dew in potatoes, weed and insect control etc.) which seems a bit over the top but there are plenty of YouTube testimonials from farmers (mostly in our local language) that seem happy with it.

The price is pretty reasonable at 20 bucks (google tells me it equates to about 0.28 dollars) and you can multiply it yourself making it a one time purchase.

The composition isn't written on the bottle but on youtube his channel has scientists from his institute testing it and finding phosphorus solublizing bacteria (https://youtu.be/NcOqpuSb9Kk), azobacter (https://youtu.be/1Sn_NMdQGiM), pseudomonas (
https://youtu.be/uir8kMPVqYE), zinc solublizing bacteria (https://youtu.be/17zQymnqILQ) etc. In fact in one of the videos he claims he was the first person to utilize Potassium solubilizing bacteria in the world back in 1996 (or 99?)

Here's an interview in 4 parts of the guy behind this. (https://youtu.be/PUfRnMRzh2, https://youtu.be/AonsLpoqK_g, https://youtu.be/pWdmANyi4jQ, https://youtu.be/CYHCk0cg3xs)


I got it off amazon at 3 times the price (still pretty cheap) because it wasn't available at source. But maybe I goofed up because instead of using jaggery as specified I just chucked the sugarcane I was chewing as a substitute. Since it is winter here it didn't speed up the composting of my small pile of kitchen scraps+leafs. To be fair neither did the soil taken from an largish old bamboo area and it has been less than 10 days.

I'm a bit sceptical of these things- from what it sounds like, it is "microbes isolated from cow dung", i'm not sure what would be different from just throwing the cow dung in there.
As for the sugarcane/jaggery/etc, I know when I'm making my inoculant for bokashi fermentation I use molasses (i've seen people use brown sugar as well). The sugarcane, if you were chewing on it, you removed the sugar, and the sugar is what makes it really hot. Also you'd probably need enough to make your teeth really unhappy, but that's a different issue. I often mulch with sugarcane bagasse (after pressing out the juice) and it doesn't get hot.
I suppose any effort to add microbes is good, but I think this might be someone wanting to take advantage of hot news topics (excitement about composting/soil improvement is getting a lot of press lately, as is nationalist sentiment-- i can't help but notice that the extract comes not just from any cow dung but from Indian cow dung). You'd probably do just as well to throw some cow dung in your garden, the way people have done forever. (whether it has magical effects, who knows, but again, manure has been doing good things for gardens for a long time.)

Katu Halkat wrote:
1. Is it too good to be true ? ... my people can be a tad overenthusiastic about this.

Katu, I think you have already drawn your own conclusions about this. I know I have.

Nuff said.

I have ordered for a set of 10 bottles of the waste decomposer. I expect it will get delivered this week. All it needs is a 200 Liter container, 200 liters of non-chlorinated water, 2 kilograms of jaggery. I need to mix these with the starter solution and stir it daily for a week. After a week it is supposed to EM activated solution. Will post an update after a couple of weeks.

Biju Bhaskar wrote:I have ordered for a set of 10 bottles of the waste decomposer. I expect it will get delivered this week. All it needs is a 200 Liter container, 200 liters of non-chlorinated water, 2 kilograms of jaggery. I need to mix these with the starter solution and stir it daily for a week. After a week it is supposed to EM activated solution. Will post an update after a couple of weeks.

Received the waste decomposer culture. Mixed it with jaggery and water today. Will share my observations after a week.

It definitely works out for composting. I used it with a airpump in a 20 L bucket using it to wet my compost occasionally and some of it went to my tank in self irrigated bed. Composting was pretty good ( tbf i live in rural area with lots of mature trees and vegetation so microbes are already plentiful in my environment). I grew tomatoes (eaten by rats), palak, bhindi (used by the ants to cultivate white feathery insect), asparagus beans, lauki (decimated by red pumpkin beetle) and bitter gourd (which was excellent as it is still going after planting in February). I didn't spray it just added little bit solution whenever i filled the tank below. Even if its a placebo I would use it since its dirt cheap and most of us don't have access to cow dung.