urea and nitrogen

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by Ray

Besides, just how much poop does an average plant get?

Precisely... they get very little fertilizer of any sort. Which says that whatever little bits that we give them is still probably an order of magnitude more than what they get in nature.

[neophyte]

Originally Posted by Roberta

Precisely... they get very little fertilizer of any sort. Which says that whatever little bits that we give them is still probably an order of magnitude more than what they get in nature.

For sure... the trickle of detritus mixed with water contains far less organic nitrogen than what we pamper our plants with!

As to where they get nitrogen in nature, I think it's more likely they get it in the form of nitrate/nitrite/ammonium but as OW said, it makes sense that they also have the capability to synthesize urease because of the scarcity of nitrogen in organic forms, even if the plants would rarely ever encounter urea.

Having a bit of urea in the fertilizer will be fine, especially since you will be periodically flushing the solution (per typical S/H methods). There will never be a buildup of urea to toxic concentrations.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Originally Posted by Ray

OW - where does urea come from in a rainforest environment?

What Water Witchin said. Virtually any mammal.

The important point is, the urease in the roots is not there by happenstance.

Since people can perform research on just about every subject under the sun (and have done so), it is no surprise that, yes, the importance of mammals urinating in the rainforest, as a nitrogen source, has already been studied. Ditto the importance of urea to rain forest epiphytes. I'll leave the Googling exercise to you if you want to look up. Just don't look up when you are in the rain forest (splat).

[Ray]

[WaterWitchin]

I'm tellin' ya... it's all about the monkeys.