Human waste, self sufficiency
This is a series of questions but all related to one another;
How does FAA compare to urine?
How would one use urine as a fertilizer?
Does fermenting it / innoculating it with IMO do anything?
I looked it up and the average person excretes 10kg of nitrogen through feces and urine in a year, which would be about 3 times as much as it would take to grow all of your vegetables. Could this be sufficient as "fertilizer" alongside cooking scraps and garden non edible biomass in a self sufficiency setting?
I don't like the idea of relying on an external source for high quality compost. Do you even need compost?
Thanks in advance!
Top answer
How does FAA compare to urine? - KNF Fuel (FAA) is amino acids urine is more nitrogen based it does have a few amino acids in it but KNF Fuel is a more complete source of aminos ...amino acids do more for the plant and microbiome ,some aminos do get broken down into nitrogen but not all the rest are used to help plants in many other way such as help produce chlorophyll ,build soil structure ,help the uptake of other nutrients and more
How would one use urine as a fertilizer?
Does fermenting it / inoculating it with IMO do anything? - Jadam talks of making Cheap Food (JLF) with both urine and humanure but both need to be fermented for more then 6 months to be used ....urine can be used as a foliar spray or soil drench at between 1:100 and 1:500 (but i would not use it on anything that had a fruit that i was gonna pick anytime soon) ....humanure can be used in the same way (it says in the book) but i would only use it as a soil drench and only on things like fruit trees and flowers ...composting toilets can also be used in the same away as humanure
i would not say compost is needed but it is the best source of organic matter for your plants and one of the easiest to make there are 100s of videos/books on composting in tons of different ways
Happy Experimenting
From the KNF library
From the KNF library
Drafted by Claude from Office Hours and the books
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Sep 2026
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3 sources
The library has one pointer on human urine. Asked about adding urea to FAA, Drake was unsure about urea itself. He pointed to Master Cho's older book on diluted human liquid fertilizer for extra nitrogen. (Office Hours Ep. 52, 40:18)
Cho's FAA notes give a nitrogen comparison. He calls FAA rich in nitrogen and a good fertilizer for soil and foliage during the vegetative growth period. (Cho, Recipe, p. 51) The Pure KNF Manual adds that FAA carries very simple amino acids that help leafy growth. (Pure KNF Manual, p. 31)
The library does not cover urine dilution rates, fermenting urine with IMO, a household nitrogen budget, or whether you need compost.
Sources
- 40:18 Office Hours Ep. 52 (Oct 2022) — Fireweed Pesticide, IMO4 vs JMS, Human Liquid Fertilizer · “pointed instead to Master Cho's older book on diluted human liquid fertilizer for extra nitrogen”
- p. 51 Cho, Recipe · “FAA is rich with nitrogen. It is a good fertilizer for applying both to soil and foliage since it enhances the growth of crops during their vegetative growth period”
- p. 31 Pure KNF Manual · “Contains very simple amino acids which help to rapidly grow leafy material.”
