Effect of male and female urine on growth and phytochemical constituents of Zea Mays

Abstract

Human urine is an aqueous solution made up of more than 95% water, with the remaining constituents made up of urea, creatinine, dissolved ions (chloride, sodium, potassium, etc), inorganic and organic compounds or salts.1 The amount produced per day varies considerably. Urine comprises only about 1 % of the waste water an individual produces in a day,2 thus making the amount about 1-1.5liters/person/day. The actual quantity per person per day is affected by factors such as: recent fluid intake (water, and other food/drinks that include water) diet, temperature, blood pressure and general health.3It is a liquid product of the human body secreted by the kidneys, containing large amounts of soluble nutrientss.4 Urine is a valuable source of nutrients that has been used since ancient times to enhance the growth of plants, notably leafy vegetables.5 The nutrients in urine are in ionic form and their availability has been found to be comparable with chemical fertilizers.6 Too much volume of human urine applied on agricultural land as fertilizer, may cause excess sodium in soil and eventually in plant. Sodium inhibits plant growth by interfering with water uptake in root and interfering with the uptake of competitive nutrients.7–9 Excess urine in the soil can introduce toxic levels of nutrient into the soil and thus kill the plant as seen in the case of urine fertilizer; the large amount of nitrogen is the main concern. A rule of thumb is that the toxic level of nitrogen is approximately four times the normal fertilization rate.5 This provides a large factor of safety for the use of urine fertilizer if nitrogen is kept at an acceptable level. It is generally accepted that other nutrients present in urine will stay at an acceptable level except in rare cases.5