Eco Youths Network Uganda@haraldgeyer Quick update from our #SustainableFarming work: we applied about 1000ml of #urinefertilizer to drying #tomatoes, hoping to revive them—but sadly they dried up completely. Likely #fertilizerburn from too much at once. Lesson learned! We'll try smaller doses + more water next time. Farming teaches us through each mistake. 🌱 #EcoAgriculture #SoilHealth #LearningByDoing
Harald Geyer@econetwork That's a very unfortunate misunderstanding.
Tomatoes are actually a good crop to start working with urine, because they are very chloride resistant and also quite resistant to fertilizer poisoning. I had very good results with tomatoes.
But still: If they are already very dry, then urine is exactly the wrong thing, because it makes plants even more thirsty. - It's like sea water. It might be water, but drinking it will make one thirsty.
This soil won't need fertilizer for a while.
@econetwork If you are applying urine to drying plants, I would use no more then 100ml on 10l of water.
If I work with pure urine for a crop, that I usually water with 6l/m², then I do something like:
1. 2l/m² water to get the soil moist
2. 2l/m² pure urine
3. 2l/m² water to get the urine into the soil
Then water the plants every day as usual and wait at least a week before using urine again. The 3-patches method is useful in figuring out, how often urine should be applied.
@econetwork When working with kept urine, its actually even more important to apply it in small amounts only, because ammonia enters plants more quickly and thus puts them under more stress then fresh urine.
Also, I see your people are applying urine with buckets. If at all possible, I'd recommend applying with a watering can, because that way you can put it close to the ground and avoid splashing the leaves that much.
@econetwork Maybe you can work out a scheme, where one person uses a bucket with water, the next one a watering can with urine and the final person a bucket with water again, if you have few watering cans only.
Also: Do you have a way how to get the urine from you big container into a watering can without spilling everywhere?
If you have a piece of flexible tube, using it as improvised siphon might help you. (Maybe try with water first, if it works.)
@haraldgeyer As I told you, we are not good financially at the moment, but as far as possible we have tried to find a way forward we’ve talked to someone from Germany who is going to help us by organizing a GoFundMe for our projects, where we shall be receiving donations from individuals who like or support our work.
@econetwork If watering cans are not available or not affordable, we should figure out an other solution.
I think, it is very important to come up with solutions, that work with locally available resources. Otherwise you can't share it with farmers and other groups.
I'd need to know more about what is available locally.
Did you know, that most plastics can be welded easily at ~120°C? Maybe one of your crafty members can build tools from plastic waste that way?
Do you have local pottery?
@haraldgeyer Thank you so much Mr. Halard for your thoughtful message and great ideas we really appreciate your support and encouragement currently we have some plastic materials available locally like old jerricans buckets and cups which we often reuse for different purposes unfortunately we don’t have local pottery near us but since you mentioned it and it might be useful we are willing to walk and find it if needed please feel free to share with us the idea ....
@haraldgeyer and how it works we shall make sure that we try it out and do our best to make it happen with the little we have