Anyone here using urine?

I will have to do a search, I had posed similar question a few months back and didnt get many hits. Thanks

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I guess that explains why its not more widely accepted. God forbid we do anything to help the planet

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For those of us who are more modest :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:, we use fertilizer labeled Urea.

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I use urine year round on my compost piles and spring/summer on my plants. It works so well I have developed a PISS ON IT! attitude. I tell my neighbors about what and why I use and I don’t get any thefts

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Only issue is human urine contains lots of sodium.

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This post has a few good laughs and some practical related advice.

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This has always been one of the best kept secrets… One human can generate enough urine/plant nutrients to feed between 50% to 100% of the crops needed to support said human.

You have to put some thoughts on both the collection and distribution aspect. If you delay using your collected urine to where you can smell the ammonia, it means that the urea (the nitrogen portion) is beginning to break down and thus loosing an important nutritional component.

How you use it depends. Easiest, dump it on the compost pile. I do that plus my trees get huge amount of green mulch, it can receive direct donations without risking it hitting the roots directly. For other plants I would mix it one part to four parts of water, at which point it can be applied directly to the soil with the roots.

Out of basic human decency I avoid any sort of foliar application or direct use with root vegetables. It should be perfectly fine but it just feels right.

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@alan

taught most of us how to use urine in the garden. Thanks buddy! I have a problem with my dogs as they are both male and pee on everything, Sometimes too much. They recently killed a pluot seedling and I was bummed. I learned through this I have to hide these things from them. If I could just teach them to spread it around better!

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Its a shame cause about a year ago I had seemingly endless amounts of wood ash from the burning of all the trees during my land clearing. Now I may eventually end up having to buy it.

Id like to know more about collection/storage/safety.
What concerns should I have about pissin into a jar and storing it, Ive read that it is sterile when it leaves my body but would it be more beneficial to refrigerate it?
Anyone obtaining it from their septic tanks? Whats your experience, how do you retrieve and keep it somewhat sanitary?

I store my urine when I’m not in need of using it, such as from mid-fall to spring, in old 2.5 gallon jugs that used to contain hort oil. You could use 5gal pails with lids either scavanged or purchased from Home Depot. I wouldn’t worry about the safety of using urine- it is only the smell that is a problem. If you wait until during or right before a rain or water it in with a hose you can avoid this problem.

Even if it was feces there wouldn’t be much danger once it was incorporated in the soil and digested by microbes, and urine is rapidly digested upon being watered in. Just wash your hands when you are done.

But don’t take my word for it. Urine In The Garden - Information About Urea Fertilizer

I have found out that storing urine in the refrigerator is unsafe for married men wishing to remain married

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I store mine in a 5 gallon bucket in the basement powder room closet. I just have to figure out a better “pee-trap” so I don’t have to keep pulling the lid off and holding my breath on every use :joy:

Edit: The container I’m using is a used Diesel Exhaust Fluid bucket from TSC (urea and water is all DEF is ironically) so it has a spout hole built in the lid and a handle built into the bottom of the bucket. I think once I rig something up it will actually work very well.

Background: I’m a microbiologist, veterinarian, and diagnostic pathologist by education and training; taught parasitology for 25 yrs.
I use urine…mostly by ‘direct application’, but have collected and stored it short-term.
It is not ‘sterile’ when it leaves your body…we all have ‘resident’ bacteria in our urethra, and some of these come along for the ride when we urinate. Recent examinations of the microbiome in organ systems show that there are bacterial populations normally present in places we previously thought were ‘sterile’, like the pregnant uterus…but they’re not.
Biggest issue with human urine, as someone already pointed out is the salt content - mostly sodium.

Edit: Space inserted here to signify my shift from discussing urine to feces, as it initially created some confusion:

Human fecal material… I’m not a fan of its use on/for food crops… sure, my own might be OK, but when you start collecting from the general public… too many potential pathogens for me to consider it safe, even if ‘composted’… viruses like rota, polio are of fecal origin, Salmonella and enteropathogenic E.coli should always be a consideration, and folks coming from less-developed countries with sketchy sewage/water treatment may be carrying intestinal parasites, like Taenia solium (the human/pork tapeworm, which can cause ocular & neurocysticercosis.
Just watch a few episodes of ‘Monsters Inside Me’ - lol.

If you want to advocate for widespread use of ‘Humanure’ in food crop production, be aware that you also need to be cognizant of the potential for increasing infant mortality rates.

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In addition to use as a fertilizer, I think it works well in its role as a time honored mammalian territorial signal and can be helpful in reducing unwanted critter pressure.

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Huh! It’s not like it’s a new thing and we aren’t even discussing using it in commercial agriculture, although you’ve given me the idea of circulating my neighborhood for people willing to donate their urine to me :wink:.

Training in microbiology is no guarantee that one will not spread unfounded fears- Please show some factual basis to support the risk that using human urine as fertilizer endangers our children.

Then you can inform some of the scientists who are studying the issue. Yes wee can: study gives green light to use urine as crop fertiliser | Drug resistance | The Guardian

“Urine contains most of the excreta’s nutrients and is normally bacteria less. If microorganisms are found in urine, they usually die rather quickly and do not pose any threat to further utilisation of urine as soil fertilizer. Usually the problem is not urine itself but solid excrement that has accidentally mixed with urine (Malkki, 1995; Schönning & Stenström, 2004; Vinnerås et al., 2008; Chandran et al., 2009)”
That is from: https://agronomy.emu.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Vol15nr2_Nagy.pdf

Also about the development of its widespread use in Africa: https://www.mtu.edu/peacecorps/programs/civil/pdfs/ryan-shaw-thesis-final.pdf

And here is a fun article from a farmer’s perspective that also includes a lot of factual info.

I’ve used urine to fertilize my straw bales all winter for my straw bale garden. Beats dumping expensive organic fertilizer on it to get the bales ready.

Depends on what routine you establish.

You can produce around two litters a day, so for me a half gallon mason jar works, I deal with it daily. A gallon container would give you a two day window.

Keep a lid on it to slow down the urea (nitrogen) breaking down into ammonia.

a 2 1/2 gallon watering can works great. One day’s worth of collection, fill the rest with water, you don’t have to worry about too strong a dose (nitrogen/smell/salts).

When @Lucky_P mention “human fecal materials”, I think he moved on from discussing urine to an issue about using feces as fertilizer.

The example of those diseases “are of fecal origin”.

I believe Lucky warned us about using feces as fertilizer.

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Ditto. I thought he was endorsing using human urine, but not feces, at least, not any feces but your own.

I live in the suburbs, and I don’t think, “direct application” is an option, as it would violate local decency standards.

(When MA first passed a sex offender registry law, there were radio interviews with people who felt it was too broad. One was a guy who sometimes peed outside his front door when he was drunk. He said, yeah, he had a drinking problem, but he didn’t think he was a danger to children. I don’t want anyone in the household to end up on a second offender registry for trying to fertilize the garden.)

I have been wondering if i ought to try to collect the stuff and use it. But “bathroom sinks of stale pee” is not something i want to deal with, either.

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