can anyone tell me if i mixed say50 or 60 litres of glycerine with with say 1000 litres of water would this make a good fertillizer to spray onto pasture grass maybe this would help get rid of some waste product

i make bio with naoh and it kills the grass and plants. but apparently if your glycerol is derived from KOH it is suitable for composting. As for 60l in 1000 of koh based glycerol i cant see the harm or the benefit but hey experiment and let us know your results.

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Cheers
Nick.

Roidio 2001 Holden Rodeo 4x4 2.8L TD. 2.5" Straight through exhaust sytem, heat exchanger shower system. 2" Body Lift,
And lots of fruit, B100 for 25,000 no problems.

Elsa 1983 Mercedes-Benz W123 300D. The Fastest Merc in Oz, Loving B100 Burgers

I have had anecdotal reports of:

• better grass growth in unimproved sand, especially with water retention
• avoiding water repellant soild (in Perth Coastal areas this is a problem).
• If the soil is acidic (clayey?) the residual caustic may assist plants which so not do well in acidic soils.
• Increased worm activity in a plot of land where diluted byproduct has been regularly sprayed.

What we need is for someone who makes biodiesel to perform some comparative tests on plots to show the differences.
eg,

• plot 1. Watered twice weekly, no byproduct.
• plot 2, Watered twice weekly, 1L/1000L byproduct.
• plot 3, Watered twice weekly, 5L/1000L byproduct.
• plot 4, Watered twice weekly, 20L/1000L byproduct.
• plot 5, Watered twice weekly, 50L/1000L byproduct.

Lawn would be a convenient plant medium

Soil samples to be examined at monthly intervals and compared for water content, worms and soil consistency.
Sampled of soil could be washed and the filtered water tested for pH, TDS, etc.

This would proovide information, relevant to all makers of biodiesel on this forum and elsewhere.

Any takers?

Tony

once the autum rains start if they do im going to start boom spraying a 1acre section of pasture on a regular basis with 50 litres per 1000 litres water and spray another acre with just water to see how it compares against each other

Two things to watch, ph and potassium levels. You can get a simple ph tester from any nursery. If the ph is already 7 (very, very unlikely in Oz), then you may not want to increase the ph any more.

The second issue is potassium. I forget which element it balances with it (I think it is magnesium), but if you get too much potassium you will throw off the potassium/magnesium balance and create other problems.

If the potassium level is already high, then you might want to reconsider using the KOH glycerin on the paddock. I suppose you could also add magnesium carbonate to the paddock to balance it and further raise the ph.

Wouldn't you need to de methonol the glyc before spraying it. I can just see you riding the tractor and getting pissed on Vodka trying to combat the effects of methonol poisoning.

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Slippery
Small steps taken one at a time.

If one were spraying the byproduct at 100% concentration and it still contained all the residual methanol, I would expect that may be an issue.
Diluted at 0.5%, I doubt that the methanol concentration would be an issue.
Economics would indicate that methanol recovery should be performed before disposal or use of the byproduct.

While this is not practical for many of us, it may be for others.

Once the methanol has been recovered/removed, this would not be an issue anyway.

Regards,
Tony

I have composted that 20L of byproduct I got from you Tony (well, most of it) and I put some worms in the compost bin with it. They loved it! Chomped through the stuff like nothing else!

I was careful not to put too much in, and I diluted it, because worms don't like the soil being too wet. I just poured a bit in each time I added something dry, so that the compost stayed moist.

Perhaps it is worth approaching somewhere that teaches ag science or agronomy, to see if any of the students would be interested in investigating the effect of byproduct on soil?

Muresk perhaps?

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