Showing papers on "Organic farming published in 1954"
TL;DR: A series of experiments were conducted concurrently with a broader investigation of composting to learn what benefit, if any, would accrue to the process from the use of an inoculum, and to determine the validity of this reasoning.
Abstract: The practice of producing organic fertilizer through the biological decomposition of organic wastes has been carried on for centuries as an art generally known as composting. The widest application of the practice has occurred in the Orient and in Europe where dense populations have for generations placed a great burden on soil fertility. Until recently, interest in composting in the United States has been limited to the amateur gardener and the organic farming enthusiast. At present, two important factors are contributing to a broadening interest in composting in this country. One is the possibility of composting as an answer to the increasingly complex and serious problem of municipal refuse disposal. The other is the growing concern over the depletion of our agricultural soils by our present intensive farming practices which fail to return organic humus to the earth. The especial importance of both of these factors to the state of California prompted the Sanitary Engineering Research Laboratory of the University of California to begin a study of the application of composting to the reclamation of municipal refuse. It soon became apparent that in spite of the antiquity of composting there existed very little scientific knowledge of the process. Because there is a widespread conviction that an "inoculum" of some sort is needed for successful and rapid composting, one of the problems studied in the investigation was the effect of such an additive on the process. Since composting is a biological process, its course should be determined by the magnitude and nature of the microbial population present. It is easy, therefore, to assume that by artificially increasing the numbers of organisms, the process should be accelerated. Refuse is a mixture of relatively undecomposed heterogenous material. During the composting of such material there appears a succession of environments, especially with regard to temperature and substrate, with a corresponding series of microbial populations. Since the environmental conditions at any one time are suitable to a limited variety of bacteria, it would seem doubtful that organisms added as an inoculum could be any more effective than similar organisms indigenous to mixed refuse. To determine the validity of this reasoning a series of experiments were conducted concurrently with a broader investigation of composting to learn what benefit, if any, would accrue to the process from the use of an inoculum. Materials which have often been considered as inocul-ums essential to the composting process include: animal manures, garden soil, decomposing material, and a variety of proprietary bacterial cultures. In the experiments, inoculums consisting of soil, of horse manure, and of partially composted material, as well as a commercial preparation of bacterial cultures were tested.
84 citations