Using pee as fertilizer safely and how it benefit permaculture.

Hello folks! I had used urine on all my domestic plants and have done well. some my squashes have vined and flowered, as have my beans, potatoes, corn and other stuff. Could we use other types of fertilizer like fish and stuff to make the pee mix well and become more effective? I'm trying to make my stuff mature as much as possible and gain more fruit. How do it benefit my soil and stuff? What's the health benefit of it? What are the enviromental benefits of it and what reward will it bring from a permacultural standpoint? Please drop off any questions or comments in this column for more ideas and things of that nature. Have a good day!

Hi.
I'm not an expert in urine. By what I've read, using urine directly might affect salt concentrations in the soil, so it might be an issue in arid climates. Another problem is that it might create conditions for bad bacteria proliferation.
A temporary solution is to dilute urine with at least the same amount of water and apply it while it's fresh. But still it might cause problems in the long run (just might, there are people using this method for ages succesfully, or so they claim).
It's considered safer to use the urine as an ingredient for compost piles. Compost piles heat will destroy almost anything evil. But you have to make up with more brown materials in the pile.
Again, this is secondhand so take it with a pinch of salt.

It depend on what you eat and drink that make the fertilizer safe for plants. I've used urine to fertilize plants by adding a little bit of the pee and water for the rest to dilute it, and my plants have done well since. I gotta be careful with my diet, especially adding too much salt, oil and sugar that affect my blood system. I don't fertilize every day, but every week, now and then. I don't have any medication on me which affect my urine which affect my blood level and therefore become useless as fertilizer. Many folks keep running out to buy chemically made fertilizer that'll end up ruin the environment in the long run. Urine provide more nitrogen that help plants such as tomatoes and have did well since I've used some, as have corn which is a nitrogen lover and other crops. I've watched one video on You Tube about a guy using urine on wood trying to decompose it. I don't know what effect will have on decomposing stuff to help the soil. I'll take note on the soil react to it being fertilized and what indigrents being put into fertilizers and stuff. We just have to be carful on how we use stuff on our plants every day as it drain down to the soil and the rest of the ecosystem, which in turn will take a turning affect on all conditions. Thanks for mentioning the soil.

Yes, dilute it 5 or even 10 to 1. You can add trace amounts of things like kelp meal, bone meal, or lime if you like.

This is called fertigation rather than fertilizing. Watering the plants regularly with nutrient rich water rather than a concentrated solution once or twice a season.

Because you dilute the urine so much, you have less salt issues in the dry hot climates.

It's applied in a similar way to fetid swamp water / bokashi. Diluted down and used regularly. You could even combine the two.

I never dilute urine when I use it.  I pee directly around the plant.  I haven't noticed any ill effects and I have been doing it for a very long time.  More than ten years in some spots.  I have seen plants will clear nitrogen deficiencies turn dark green and flourish after having been peed on a few times.

Yes, standard practice with lots of urine (collected in a jug) is to dilute it 5 or 10 to 1. Peeing next to plants usually doesn't hurt as long as rain or irrigation happens, and you rotate where you pee. I don't pee in the same place in the same month, but our dogs did and killed many plants.

Please show me some examples of how wood is decomposed by using urine. I wanna try it on logs and brush piles and see how they work. Wanna find out if urine can be used as a repellent to draw away pests and bothersome rodents such as rats and mice. Has anybody used pee as a repellent today?

Here's an interesting document from a few years ago on how urine is used successfully in crop production in Africa.

https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-Book-Stenstrom-PracticalGuidanceOnTheUseOfUrineInCropProduction.pdf

It's liquid gold!

Another thing to buffer and store the nitrogen in urine is to mix it with ash, charcoal, or biochar and then dilute the solution with water. This also helps cut down on ammonia and smell. The charcoal will charge with the nutrients in the urine and keep it from being washed away in the next rainfall. Burnt wood also provides a range of trace elements as well as potassium and phosphorus, so combined with urine this mix makes a perfectly balanced, slow release, and completely free fertilizer. Yes salts are a an issue, but they can mitigated by no-till, less watering, shade, and heavy use of mulch.

Blake Lenoir wrote: Please show me some examples of how wood is decomposed by using urine.

Decomposition of wood absorbs Nitrogen to create mulch. You provide Nitrogen by adding urine.

I believe the nitrogen primarily promotes the green parts of the plant, i.e. you wouldn't want to add urine when your plants are fruiting

I mostly add urine to my beds and containers during the off seasons.
Since I cover the soil with autumn leaves, the soil life has carbon and nitrogen to work with.
In some of the beds the soil is  built out of little more than leaves and urine.
I also build compost cages/raised beds next to bushes and trees I want to feed.
I'm not worried that strait pee will hurt the trees, but I feel like compost will feed it longer and more complete.

I've tried peeing on a stump for over two years now and I can confidently report that it is an excellent method of wood preservation! I think what is happening in this case is that the urine is inhibiting fungal establishment in the stump, because it remains intact even as stumps and logs of similar size and even the same species have broken down over the same time frame.

Lignin is a tough molecule to crack and so far only certain types of fungi can do it. High nitrogen supports bacterial growth and they are amateurs when it comes to digesting lignin.

Many North American soils are low in carbon, so I agree that if you're going to fertilize with urine, adding lots of carbon, such as woody mulch and fall leaves, is important.