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Study Finds Tomatoes Thrive On Urine 21

Posted by samzenpus from the does-this-sauce-taste-funny-to-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Using human urine as a fertilizer produces bumper crops of tomatoes that are safe to eat, scientists have found. Their research was published last month in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry and may help cheaply boost crops in the developing world. From the article, 'Yields for plants fertilized with urine quadrupled and matched those of mineral-fertilized plants. The urine-fertilized tomatoes also contained more protein and were safe for human consumption.'"

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Study Finds Tomatoes Thrive On Urine More

Study Finds Tomatoes Thrive On Urine

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  • Obligatory humour. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Now this is just taking the Piss...

    • Would love to mod this funny, but no points... :-(

      It's taking the piss and feeding it back to you after harvest.
  • Honestly, who is surprised by this? Urine contains a lot of nitrogen, water, and salts that a plant needs.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nutria ( 679911 )

      Urine contains ... salts that a plant needs.

      Ummm, don't think so.

      In the ancient world, spreading salt into the fields was one form of genocide.

      • I know that but a plant needs a small amount of salts (naturally present in soil anyway in low concentrations). I'm not sure whether the [salt] in urine is toxic for plants. It would vary a lot anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SenFo ( 761716 )
      When I was a kid, my grandparents lived on a farm. There was a spot on the side of my grandfathers garage that everybody would go to pee because nobody could see you. Maybe we were peeing toxic piss, but the grass never grew there.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Abreu ( 173023 )

      A few years ago, I helped clean up an abandoned house and while doing so, we found a very large tomato plant in the backyard.

      We figured it had bloomed from tomato seeds from the construction workers' refuse. We ate a few of the fruits (they were good, albeit a bit small).

      Later we found out the drain pipe had a leak just below that plant, making it obvious why it had grown so beautifully...

  • You mean that by pissing on my neighbor's tomatoes, I was actually helping him? D'oh!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nutria ( 679911 )

      By pissing on the leaves and stalks, you probably did hurt the plants.

      Roots, though, are different from leaves.

  • A type of fertilizer called purin [wikipedia.org] can involve urine as a major component. It is used at least in France, for ages. Generally the urine of cattle is used, but human urine can be used too, especially in the case for little garden where people grow vegetables for their own consumption.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Urea is a common ingredient in chemical fertilizer. It comes in pelletized form. ~100lbs in 300 gallons of water makes a good liquid application.

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