Free Co2 Via Soil Respiration

[jumpincactus]

Way to much fucking around to achieve any good c02 for plant growth. you need to factor in lots of stuff alt , barometric pressures , temps etc RH
Why not just buy a bottle and be done with it or put in 1- 2000 liter Vat and start making wine or beer :) in your grow room ..
You here people talk about thermol energy could only imagine how much of a pile one would need to maintain 80 degrees in a house with a shit pile.
Most thermal i have read is there drilling 300 feet into the ground where its more stable in temp variations ,, a shit pile is not going to be stable one bit.
that is just wasted money might as well make a Diy Boiler to heat up what ever

I have made some pretty hot soil mixes and i think the hottest i got it up to was 60 anything hotter were defeating the purpose as micrbioligical life DIE
So your damned if you do and damned if you don't ;)
A well-designed indoor compost system, >10 gallons in volume, will heat up to 40-50°C in two to three days. Soda bottle bioreactors, because they are so small, are more likely to peak at temperatures of 30-40°C. At the other end of the range, commercial or municipal scale compost systems may take three to five days to heat up and reach temperatures of 60-70°C. Compost managers strive to keep the compost below about 65°C because hotter temperatures cause the beneficial microbes to die off. If the pile gets too hot, turning or aerating will help to dissipate the heat.

@NightsWatch I dont think @Homesteader is considering using cooking soil to supply his co2 his thread is just an observation of the biosynthesis of the co2 output in relation to his soil cooking. I could be wrong tho. Please set me straight @Homesteader

 

[Homesteader]

Way to much fucking around to achieve any good c02 for plant growth. you need to factor in lots of stuff alt , barometric pressures , temps etc RH
Why not just buy a bottle and be done with it 

I have used my soil mix from four months ago to achieve 1000-1500ppm (while plants are in the room breathing). I already own a tank. I own a regulator.......Why would I buy gas if my soil supplies it?
You are talking compost....I am talking about oxidizing carbon from peat moss. To do this you need around a 50:1 C:N.......No way your compost is that ratio. Peat is a carbon sink.

 

[Homesteader]

@NightsWatch I dont think @Homesteader is considering using cooking soil to supply his co2 his thread is just an observation of the biosynthesis of the co2 output in relation to his soil cooking. I could be wrong tho. Please set me straight @Homesteader

Sure am....Kinda.....The N cycle is much faster in this case. The soybean takes a few weeks in my mix to break down. But after a few weeks it is good to go. I don't really use much compost in my mix. bone char and soybean is the majority.

 

[Homesteader]

Great link @Bulldog420 this is right up my alley.

The webinar that I posted is from the owner of Solvita.....

 

[Homesteader]

Way to much fucking around to achieve any good c02 for plant growth. you need to factor in lots of stuff alt , barometric pressures , temps etc RH
Why not just buy a bottle and be done with it or put in 1- 2000 liter Vat and start making wine or beer :) in your grow room ..
You here people talk about thermol energy could only imagine how much of a pile one would need to maintain 80 degrees in a house with a shit pile.
Most thermal i have read is there drilling 300 feet into the ground where its more stable in temp variations ,, a shit pile is not going to be stable one bit.
that is just wasted money might as well make a Diy Boiler to heat up what ever

I have made some pretty hot soil mixes and i think the hottest i got it up to was 60 anything hotter were defeating the purpose as micrbioligical life DIE
So your damned if you do and damned if you don't ;)
A well-designed indoor compost system, >10 gallons in volume, will heat up to 40-50°C in two to three days. Soda bottle bioreactors, because they are so small, are more likely to peak at temperatures of 30-40°C. At the other end of the range, commercial or municipal scale compost systems may take three to five days to heat up and reach temperatures of 60-70°C. Compost managers strive to keep the compost below about 65°C because hotter temperatures cause the beneficial microbes to die off. If the pile gets too hot, turning or aerating will help to dissipate the heat.

78 degrees and moist....how hard is that? Less BS than filling a tank.

 

[Homesteader]

Microbes oxidize carbon when the ratio of C:N:p (P) is 100:10:1, therefore theoretically any mix that is above 10:1 C:N will give you some CO2 when you add a little fish.

Peat Soils vs. the Forests Above: Which Holds More Carbon?

"The amount of carbon held in tropical peat is estimated around 88.6 billion tonnes worldwide—if all this carbon were released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, it would be the same as burning all proven oil reserves from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Canada, Russia, and the United States. That’s a scary amount of heat-trapping emissions."

http://blog.ucsusa.org/lael-goodman/peat-soils-vs-the-forests-above-which-holds-more-carbon-528

 

[Homesteader]

It doesn't appear that the peat and EWCs alone are enough to make this work but I am going to add a cup of soybean meal to the mix when the lights go on to see if that is the ticket. I did this experiment earlier in the summer but was not giving the attention to the exact temps, so I figured it was a good starting point but I figured I would see some CO2 after a few days(so far 0). I will give it two or three days to see if that is enough and if not I will add some white rice. I believe I will see significant respiration in a few days after adding the N.

 

[Homesteader]

"The duration of the nitrate depression period during immobilization depends on environmental factors such as moisture and temperature and the carbon-to-nitrogen (C:N) ratio of the residue. Soil organic matter contains an average of about 50 percent carbon and 5 percent nitrogen. This ratio (10:1) is relatively constant for organic matter. The C:N ratio of plant residue ranges from 10:1 for young leguminous plant tissue to as high as 200:1 for straw of some grains. Plant tissues low in nitrogen generally are more resistant to decomposition and require a longer time before the nitrogen is available to plants.

When a plant residue with a wide C:N ratio is incorporated into the soil, microbial decomposition starts. Microorganism populations increase greatly, evidenced by increased release of CO2 leaving the soil through respiration. The microorganisms take nitrogen from the soil for proteins. Consequently, for a time the concentration of inorganic nitrogen in the soil declines, and may be deficient for plant growth. As residue decomposes, the C:N ratio narrows. At a ratio of approximately 17:1, nitrogen becomes available for plant use. Decomposition continues until the ratio is approximately 11:1 or 10:1."

http://passel.unl.edu/pages/informa...rmationmodule=1130447042&topicorder=2&maxto=8

So what this tells us is that the more a soil respirates the more it binds up the Nitrogen in the soil until the Carbon is consumed.

 

[Homesteader]

Unfortunately again I have yet to get respiration for the simple mix of peat, EWC and soybean so today I added a half cup of bone char to the mix to see what that will do. The mix has grown a lot of mycelium on the top but nothing measurable in respiration of CO2. I am also wondering if the acid in the peat is an issue as I have always mixed coco/peat with my other mixes, but time will tell. I have had a tough time getting temps as high as I want to in my room with the cold weather outside so that may also be hindering it some.

 

[THELORAX802]

This is the carbon cycle! When plants breathe in CO2 they use it to build structure combined with light energy. As these structures are broken down by microbiology, nutrients are seperated from CO2 and immobilized in the microbes while the energy used to make the now digest compound is released in the form of thermal energy.

Now get a thermal transfer coil to put in your compost pile to extract the heat for hot water or area heating. We are going to try a year around light dep in a Walapini heated with compost.

Wow what a wonderful idea with a coil,............

 

[Homesteader]

Slide at 47:44 minutes in.

 

[Homesteader]

@Slownickel
Could this why I am getting such high CO2 rates from my soil at 3:00 in? I always assumed it was the high peat base alone and didnt even look at my lime reacting. Even more curious now.

 

[One drop]

Top thread created thanks for all the links guys I got some good reading to catch up on .

 

[Ecompost]

Did I hear someone say carbon cycle...?

@Homesteader I am very glad you decided to open this discussion up with the rest of the forum. The whole thing is pretty wild and we're still learning so much.

ever the case, with over 40K academic papers discussing a limited topic, say anti oxidants released in the last year alone, its overwhelming, esp given at a recent convention on said AO's it was agreed the major movers and shakers have no idea, or at least consensus on what they are, what the exact value is, where if ever they are toxic, if we should be supplementing and so on. Isnt it odd how we have to be told to do what other so called simpler organisms can handle instinctively, eg balance our nutrition, or cycles?
I recommend Dr Fred Provenza for more insight in to this paradox

On CO2 from the soil, may be this guy Dr Will Brinton

 

[Ecompost]

Buz is also helpful on the subject

 

[Homesteader]

@Ecompost Not sur eif you had a chance to listen to this but it is a wealth of info from Dr Will Brinton. A MAINER at that! I believe he is the owner of Solvita with Dr Rick Haney.
14:18 EXPLAINS MY SOIL 100% and why it wasn't just decomposition. Sorry I didnt pickup on that earlier.

 

[Ecompost]

@Ecompost Not sur eif you had a chance to listen to this but it is a wealth of info from Dr Will Brinton. A MAINER at that! I believe he is the owner of Solvita with Dr Rick Haney.
14:18 EXPLAINS MY SOIL 100% and why it wasn't just decomposition. Sorry I didnt pickup on that earlier.

we have been using solvita products for as long as the company has been around buddy, they are good people and the knowledge they have is extremely useful. The haney soil test is where its at for me

 

[Homesteader]

Im a little in the dark with what it is. I assumed it just had an added CO2 burst test.no?

 

[Homesteader]

 

[Homesteader]