What To Do With Johnson Su Compost After It Has Been Extracted.

[@RedGarner]

Jay, thank you for continuing to experiment! And thank you for sharing both your successes and your failures. I just want you to know that there are a lot of us out here that appreciate the time and energy you put in to raising awareness of regenerative agriculture and the power of the microbes in the soil.

[@youngredangus6041]

Thanks so much for the encouragement Jed!

[@rasmushemma]

Great work, looking forward to try this out in Norway

[@greggmcclelland8430]

Its interesting to see the johnson soo stuff you are doing. I am taking a more animal integrated approach with my compost. It would be interesting to see the comparison between what I am doing and what your tightly controlled Johnson Soo bins produce from a biology standpoint. I am tempted to get a microscope to look at the biology. But it probably would not change what I am doing. I clean out my chicken coop deep bedding(wood chips and grass clippings) once a year in the spring after adding fresh bedding every couple weeks during the year. I have 30-40 laying hens. I put the harvested compost in a pile in the back of my yard. I have been adding grass clippings as a covering on top to shade the pile and encourage earthworms to come to the surface. I plan to put this compost on the garden in the fall or early spring next year in preparation for spring planting. I was worried about using it directly without aging it. I mixed in leaf mulch and 6 month old stockpiled wet mulch along with grass clippings and water as I was building the pile. I plan to judge how well it is doing by how many earthworms I have thriving in the pile. I figure if the earthworms are still munching in the pile, its a good pile. I am not turning the pile, but adding to it as I have grass clippings or leaves. I have been using the some of the older chicken compost when it has earthworms in it to mix in the hole with fruit trees during planting this spring. Also, I top dressed them. Not sure how much this has helped, because we have had dry weather and I have not watered as much as I should. But so far so good. I also put it in the 800 feet of tilled garden rows where we have had corn and soybeans growing forever under rent and just recently stopped renting the land and planted organic wheat and clover. While tilling, we put in aged compost in the rows and tilled it in. I have been mowing the field around the garden and top dressing with grass clippings to hold in the moisture. I am hoping the worms in the compost will hang around and keep feeding the garden.

[@youngredangus6041]

Sounds like a good system

[@FrazzleDazzle9]

Appreciate your sharing your experiments - keep up the good work!

[@youngredangus6041]

Thanks

[@josttalvist8744]

Wanted to know what is the extraction process like, how much water do you use or what is the ratio and how to store it

[@mariomene2051]

With my Johnson-Su BioReactor (typical materials and build--neither added nor subtracted from the instructions), I noticed, early on, that it had already had what had appeared to be "finished" compost (grey, clay-like compost--the fact that it was supposed to collapse had eluded my mind, so I poked a couple of the collapsed air vents through with the handle of a rake, and, on the handle of the rake, when I retrieved it from the BioReactor, was the grey clay-like compost), but, now that I've gone to harvest the compost, I find none of it (the places where the sun shone have none, and it is located only on the rear/north side, where it was always shaded--I'm guessing I have to either make the next one in the shade, or else fabricate a covering), but, in the same places where the grey clay-like compost had been, there is a dark clay-like compost. It's a bit disappointing, but I only have a garden, so what I have is more than I need, and I have learned a few important things for the next go-round. Dr. Johnson doesn't really answer calls or emails anymore, so I don't have anyone else to bounce ideas off of. You mentioned you didn't want to go through Dr. Ingham's course to learn microscopy: a grad of hers, Matt Powers, offers a course in microscopy (skip all the "foundational courses" of Soil Food Web) by which you may obtain a certification. It's considerably less expensive--his kickstarter price for the course is $1500 I believe. Do you know where I could get my compost analyzed?

[@youngredangus6041]

Zach Write of www.livingsoil.net/our-team

[@aminzakaria6940]

J,how about your experiment of the compost that had the flax inoculation of eleveted fungi product.. have you uproot the flax maybe?

[@youngredangus6041]

All the compost has been used. I need to give an update that we didn’t seem any noticeable difference in the two. Maybe I’ll create a short video for it because I have a lot of videos coming up in the works.

[@aminzakaria6940]

But Jay! I wish you wood have give enough growth time for the flax to get to almost mature enough to uproot them may be!

[@joef6858]

Jay you said the worms would pull dirt into the air holes of the extracted compost. So the worms can survive the extraction process? And does the extracted compost still have some microbes within it after this process? Thx for your valuable info.

[@youngredangus6041]

Yes There will still be worms in the extracted compost

[@tsimons6705]

What is extraction of compost and what is the purpose of it? 😮

[@aminzakaria6940]

J,have you been having a temperature device to know the composts temperature status?

[@youngredangus6041]

I do It’s broken. I have to order a new one. They feel like they are hitting 150-160

[@aminzakaria6940]

Okey J,but by the way do you filter or know the quality of the water you intend to use it in mixing with you compost?

[@aminzakaria6940]

J,do you shred your carbon (woody) material?

[@youngredangus6041]

Yes in the wood chipper for Johnson Su The corn stalks in the spent compost no Looking for more air flow

[@aminzakaria6940]

So interesting! So if i want to have it,is it a must to contact Jonson Su?

[@youngredangus6041]

@@aminzakaria6940 You mean if you want to buy Johnson Su Compost?

[@christopherburman3340]

Jay. Question from south africa. I appreciate technical details, but - what is the impact on yr fields today?

[@youngredangus6041]

Be more specific It adds biology It reduced the amount of synthetic fertilizers It adds nematodes Protozoa and Rother microorganisms It increase my fungi to bacteria ratio