Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:
...
control fungi. at the rate of application of
one dry quart to seventeen dry quarts of husks,
the answer is no.

Since fungi create a low pH environment, and bacteria a high pH one
(relatively speaking), it appears the bacteria won (NH4 = pH 7).

the bin was full of fungi and smelled of ammonia.
hmm... now i'm really confused. hahaha...

ok.

can't revisit atm, experiment terminated, until
next supply of husks comes around.

as side notes, usually in the dirt the bacteria
include species of nitrogen fixers and consumers
of ammonia so it is very rare for me to smell
ammonia coming from dirt unless i've happened to
hit a localized heavy spot of organic material
being decomposed by fungi.

Nitrogen fixers convert N2 to NH3. The plant uses the NH3.

and there are bacteria that will turn it
back into the gas form again.

I've read about bacteria mineralizing (oxidizing) NH3 to NO3. I've never
heard of bacteria converting NH3 back to N2. You got a citation?

not handy. i may be misremembering or
misclassifying, could be an algae, cyanobacteria,
eubacteria or whatever they are being called
these days. nothing like advancements of science
to screw up a poor memorizers brain. anyways
i do know there is a nitrogen cycle.

i did just read about it a few different times
in overview. really. i wasn't daydreaming...

ages ago i was into reef aquaria and they can
be finicky about nitrogen pollution.


if what you say is true that would be the reverse
case wouldn't it? do you smell ammonia when you
work in your garden soil as compared to what you
smell when messing with the soil/mulch layer boundary?

I never smell ammonia (NH3) in the soil, but I do, rarely, in the mulch
when the mulch is very thick .50cm. Decomposition of amino acids (acid
+ NH3) can be a strictly chemical reaction.

half a cm of mulch is not much mulch at all.
did you mean 5cm?

Whoops! No I meant 50 cm. I decided to use cm instead of meters.

50cm is a lot of mulch. i sometimes smell
ammonia from the layer from under 10-15cm of
mulch.


....
if there is an energy source there is likely a
bacteria that feeds off it (i would not be surprised
if there were a bacteria that also feed off nuclear
reactions too).

Not many nutrients in alpha particles, and x-rays. If you mean warm
water, for sure.

not nutrients, energy. like what the
chloroplasts or diatoms get from the sun.


songbird