Pasteurising Worm Poop.

[Marcus]

Hello.

Anyone pasteurise their soil mixes and or worm poop?

I just pulled a lovely few kg of squidgy black worm crap out the bin and was pondering whacking it in the slow cooker till the centre of the bag hits 70*C and leaving it for an hour or two to steep. Then keeping it sealed until I need it in a month or two.

Any ideas?

I've pasteurised horse poop in the same way and it works wonders in growing mushrooms... Real crazy aggressive growth.

Which leads me onto the reason why I wanna clean it up and keep it till needed - I've ordered a bag of this compost...



https://www.dalefootcomposts.co.uk/prod ... ads.p.aspx

Been eyeing the stuff up for a good few years now but I only ever pay a tenner for a big bag of batmix and that works for me.

I want to run 16L pots with it but supercharge the bottom of the pots with castings, horse poop and a bit of batshit I have leftover, and also top dress if and when needed. (I am hoping to not need to hit them with too much liquid ferts if any at all!)

Those wool composts have bracken and comfrey as their other ingredients too and are slow release NPK machines according to tomato growers on this here internet. The veggie one out performs the tomato specific one too.

ANyway, thanks in advance.

[FX]

That stuff looks good, I may have to try some of that myself... as for pasteurising worm casts, I don't think you have to, they should be full of good microbes, gmo will confirm though

[Marcus]

Surely pasteurization would eliminate all the good stuff in the castings buddy. Soil temps are usually fairly consistent outdoors, wouldn't pasteurizing them potentially damage the microbes etc. I think you'd get better results from letting them mature until you need them without heating it up.

[Marcus]

It's the pathogens and any fungus gnat eggs I want to clean out of the poop.
I'm presuming there may be enough good microbes in the compost already.
This is just grub for their last few weeks in flower really.

[Marcus]

I don't think pathogens will be an issue tbh. https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 016-0152-4

[Marcus]

I might just dry it out and keep it in a tub then, checking for bugs every now and again.

Having a google keeps throwing up statements like this..

"Pasteurizing is heating it to a medium temperature, not hot enough to completely sterilize it, but enough to kill off harmful pathogens like some kinds of fungus, and bacteria. Generally, it isn't hot enough to burn the soil, or kill the beneficial types of micro organisms."

And from the crazy mycelium growth I'm getting on pasteurised horse poop, I just pondered if the same could be done with the castings?

I know I need to pasteurise them if I wanted to sling it in my mushroom tubs, so maybe not for plants?

I dunno.



Cheers man!

[Marcus]

It's mushroom growing but still some good info on hot composting and pasteurising compost.

https://extension.psu.edu/growing-mushr ... -substrate


Edit to add... https://extension.psu.edu/understanding ... l-microbes

[IMO]

Hmm that wool compost looks interesting