On Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:56:44 -0800, Billy wrote:
Most plants take up nitrogen primarily in the form of nitrate (NO3-)
• except in conditions where nitrifying bacteria don't grow well
(low pH, anaerobic). Then ammonia (NH4+) will be available for uptake

Now that's interesting!

Since it's compost we're working with, we don't know (yet) which plants
will be using the nitrogen.

So, I guess, we want the nitrogen as both a nitrate (NO3-) and as an
ammonia (NH4+).

I wonder how we know if a plant that we plan on fertilizing with this
compost uses its nitrogen as nitrates versus ammonia?

And, depending if we want more nitrates versus more ammonia, I wonder
what we'd need to do to tilt the chemical balance one way or the other?