"Rusty Hinge" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Franz Heymann" contains these
words:

Speaking from deep ignorance:
I thought the nitrogen is usually applied as soluble nitrogen-containing
inorganic salts.
I thought the fungi which decompose the wood absorbed such nitrogen as
they
need, leaving the rest to be washed into the soil. From there the
existing
plants take what they need, and if any is left over (in which case you
applied too much) it washes out into the groundwater. In what form
would it
go into the atmosphere? Which life form is going to convert chemically
bound nitrogen in solution into nitrogen in a gaseous form?

Some bacteria molish ammonia as a by-product of noshing.

True, but ammonia is highly soluble in water.
I have never encountered a mulch which smelled of ammonia.

Franz