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Study Finds Tomatoes Thrive On Urine

Posted by samzenpus on 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.'"

17 of 21 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory humour. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now this is just taking the Piss...

    1. Re:Obligatory humour. by Squeeonline · · Score: 1

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

      It's taking the piss and feeding it back to you after harvest.

  2. Surprise? by Squeeonline · · Score: 1

    Honestly, who is surprised by this? Urine contains a lot of nitrogen, water, and salts that a plant needs.

    1. Re:Surprise? by Nutria · · Score: 1

      Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes!

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    2. Re:Surprise? by Nutria · · Score: 1

      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 don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    3. Re:Surprise? by Squeeonline · · Score: 1

      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.

    4. Re:Surprise? by SenFo · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      My lame blog.
    5. Re:Surprise? by Abreu · · Score: 1

      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...

      --
      No sig for the moment.
  3. Oops! by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

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

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Oops! by Nutria · · Score: 1

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

      Roots, though, are different from leaves.

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
  4. Re:Urine is sterile by imamac · · Score: 1

    Filtered urine is used to drink and is perfectly safe. Urine does contain toxins that the body is getting rid of for a reason.

  5. what to say when you drop a tomato by meow27 · · Score: 1

    Piss!

  6. Re:Urine is sterile by Tim4444 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sort of. The liver converts the toxins, read ammonia, into a safe chemical, read urea, and that's what the kidneys filter. I'm not sure but I don't think the urea would pass through the intestine walls back into the blood stream if ingested. It's more likely that it will dehydrate you due to osmosis since the kidneys do a great job of concentrating the urea. I don't believe we have digestive enzymes that work on urea so it would probably just pass through you. As for other toxins, if the body can get it out of the bloodstream once it can do it again. There's actually an old Japanese tradition of drinking your morning piss. I don't know of any health benefits, but as far as I know it didn't really do them any harm either.

    As for tomatoes, I've heard of urea fertilizers, but it's usually bad practice to put waste from humans or carnivores on crops because you can pass on E. Coli and various diseases that way.

  7. Donor card ? by jean-guy69 · · Score: 1

    A type of fertilizer called purin 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.

    1. Re:Donor card ? by sjames · · Score: 1

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

  8. Re:Urine is sterile by Locke2005 · · Score: 1

    I thought urine was actually sterile unless you have a urinary tract infection. Feces, on the other hand, is a veritable bacterial stew.

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  9. Re:Urine is sterile by Abreu · · Score: 1

    Urine is sterile... for about a minute before it attracts all sorts of bacteria

    --
    No sig for the moment.