Continuing our discussion on the use of Dr. Krishan Chandra’s bacterial solution as a waste decomposer, let me discuss a very interesting experiment we did.
This experiment not only provided an acid test for the solution but also can be a boon to many problems we face every day.
There is a fully automatic grain cleaning facility near my friend’s place in India. In this facility they clean tens of tons of grain each day. That includes various serials like wheat, corn, millets, as well as pulses such as black gram, horse gram, soya and so on.
While cleaning these grains, obviously some amount of it gets discarded as waste.
You may be surprised to know that such waste adds to more than a ton each month. This waste has broken grains, husk, stalks, in addition to dust and other agricultural impurities.
From nutrition point of view, it is very rich and can be a good feed to chicken. But without further cleaning, this cannot be used directly. But the cleaning cost may not justify its use. So, they used to dump this waste periodically in a dumping yard.
What a waste of resources!
When my friend approached them and asked them for a few bagsful of these wastes, those people were more than willing to provide them, nicely bagged and stitched, all for free!
Our idea was to try and decompose this waste using our waste decomposer solution and see how effective the solution is. Since the waste contained raw grains, hard and dry, it should pose a real acid test for the bacteria, we thought. Only nice thing is that most of the waste was in broken form without any need for further grinding them and making them finer.
We wanted our process to be very simple and practical – no compost tanks, no pits, no plastic sheets to cover, no nothing. Just the magic solution and plenty of water!
Dr. Chandra claims that his process is a “cold process”, producing no smell at all, can work in any ambient conditions – open fields as well as enclosed area, with no stringent requirement on heap size etc.
All that we did is to heap this waste, layer by layer to a height of 2 feet on bare ground with not even cement flooring! We ensured that the layers were interspersed with husk and other lighter material to ensure good aeration.
The heap was thoroughly wetted with the bacterial solution. Dr. Chandra suggests maintaining 50-60% humidity. If you take a fistful of wet waste and gently squeeze it, it should exude a few drops of water. It should be that wet.
The heap was finally covered with a wooden plank to protect it from drying due to scorching sun. That is all we did!
I asked my friend to inspect the heap periodically to make sure that the water has not completely dried. In case it did, he was supposed to pour some water on the heap and make it wet again.
There were lots of ifs and buts in our minds. Since the material was very rich in carbohydrates and proteins, we were worried that the heap may start stinking once the decomposition starts. There could be all kinds of flies as well, attracted by the stench. We were worried about our nosy neighbors who may complain.
There could also be attack by rodents and other nocturnal creatures that may get attracted by the smell of fresh grains.
I had intentionally asked my friend not to turn the heap periodically as suggested by Dr. Krishan Chandra. Like in any composting process, turning the heap periodically is thought to be essential to provide sufficient aeration. Dr. Chandra suggests turning the heap once every week.
But we decided to do none of that since turning meant more labor. We wanted the process completely free – free of infrastructure as well as labor!
For the next few days, myself and my friend watched with our fingers crossed. Will it work? Or are we expecting too much?
For the first few days nothing significant happened except rising of temperature to around 50-degree Celsius. There was slight rotten odor which was perceptible but not very offensive.
Then on the fourth day, the heap started getting colder! The stench also started reducing. Has the experiment failed? We kept wondering.
I asked my friend to gently dig into the heap a bit and see what is happening.
There was horror and my friend shrieked in panic. He said it was all over and we have failed. It was the worst nightmare for him.
What exactly had happened? We will discuss that in the next episode.
A series of weekly (every Monday 12 PM PST) talks on new ways of Gardening by Dr. King. © Dr. King 2019
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