I've never added mineral nitrates of any kind so I can't speak of any success. In my opinion, it's neither necessary nor effective if you have the brown to green ratio right, sufficient moisture and air. If you are talking about a nitrate fertilizer, just use it in your gardens. With a little experience, you could have finished compost in less than 90 days. There's an old saying. "If you want fast compost, go to Walmart and buy some" and thats right out of the book. (I wrote)
Bill Hill

Check out the North Dakota State rapid composting method here

http://www.fao.org/ORGANICAG/doc/On_farm_comp_methods.pdf

I use high nitrogen lawn fertilizer to rapid compost wood chips. The nitrogen source (urea, ammonia, nitrate)doesn't matter.

I use some pelleted urea in my very high brown content worm bins. I've visited commercial worm producers who use the urea to increase the worm growth rate as well. For me, the urea addition really helps in the decomposition of the browns (lots of wood chips, unshreded paper, old weeds, etc.). Urea is a fairly cheap addition, easy to apply (just sprinkle on surface and water in), and makes it much easier for me to get reasonable compost without lots of green materials.
Renais

Addition of nitrogen is beneficial in some composting instances, particularly in high-cellulose/lignin (woody) mixtures and shortage of nitrogen sources, as previous posters have noted, and particularly when determining that the C:N ratio is off - so the issue can be corrected without rebuilding a pile to add more material.

The problems with urea is only a moderate solubility in water, (percolation into a pile is slow when spread on top) with a release-time of 6-9 weeks, has about 1% chlorine (not good for microbes) and has about 3% salts (not good for plants).

My preferred source of nitrogen for compost is a product called N-Sure which contains 3 pounds of nitrogen per gallon (concentrated for agricultural dilution).

Albeit a bit more expensive - but less is needed, and is easier to apply to layers with sprayer, and less likely to add too much.
Problem is it only comes in 5-gallon buckets, so unless someone composts with a lot of carbon (such as wood chips/sawdust/oak leaves/pine needles, etc.), it would not be cost-effective in the short-term unless several composters split a bucket.

FIRST CHOICE is a registered trademark of Western Farm Service, Inc.; N-SURE and KTS are registered trademarks of Tessenderlo Kerley, Inc. Triazone a trademark of Tessenderlo Kerley, Inc.

Robert

This little blurb has some useful information on urea. The addition of soil or a clay slurry to capture nitrogen during the composting of wood chips is obvious from the information given.

Here is a link that might be useful: Urea Fertilizer

Robert,

Where does one get N-Sure? What is approximate cost?

TIA...from the land of oak trees and pinestraw!

Not sure where you are, pennymca - so providing the company contact info that makes N-Sure - who can provide location of nearest dealer...

Tessenderlo Kerley, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
2255 N. 44th St. Suite 300
Phoenix, AZ 85008-3279
Tele: (602) 889-8300
Toll Free: 1-800-669-0559
Fax: (602) 889-8430
Email: info@tkinet.com

Robert

Here is a link that might be useful: N-Sure

We have a problem between theory and practice here. High urea lawn fertilizer is probably the easiest-cheapest way for most of us to get urea, so if a little is lost to the atmosphere during conversion you are probably still ahead moneywise. Theoretically, chlorine may be bad for microbes, practically, a compost pile with the right amount of solid-prilled urea mixed iis steaming hot in a couple of days and will have mushrooms sprouting out of it in no time (so the microbial action is enhanced). Mixing in prilled fertilizer during turning negates the need for percolation, and my pile sheds rain water so I would never spread it on top any way. Fungi, unlike bacteria, do not do well in a moist environment (bacteria live in the water film on particles fungal threads do not), and they can work with/near "solid" urea and translocat the absorbed nitrogen to other parts of their filaments.

Using a clay slurry on compost is a bit counter productive for many of us because we want the compost (charged sites on humin and humic acids) to bind with the clay in our soil to improve soil texture, and on a practical note, urea plus composting materials works just fine without doing it.

As for salt (presumably sodium chloride) you mainly have to worry about that if you live in desert areas with sodium build up from evaporation of high sodium irrigation water. Some people actually add sodium chloride to their soil when growing tomatoes to increase sugar content.

Thanks Robert!

spiced ham,

Chlorine is an effective microbe killer. Fact, not theory.
To the extent a microbe killer is introduced into a compost pile, to that extent microbes perish.
If chlorine is used in a compost pile, it simply will not be what it could have been in a shorter period of time.
To maximize time-to-harvest, don't use chlorine.
Remove chlorine with an activated charcoal filter on the water spigot.

Fungi REQUIRE a moist environment to flourish.
Dry material does NOT decompose quickly.

Mushrooms sprouting on top of compost is not necessarily ANY indication of pile's internal microbial activity, and has nothing to do with bacterial populations.

The point of using a liquid nitrogen source on top of a pile (leaching), was so that the time/labor/disturbance of pile turning was not necessary to introduce additional nitrogen to increase microbial populations/decompsition rate, in the same manner which a carbon/carbohydrate source (wet molasses) may be applied without turning.

The link that cowgirl2 provided, specifically states: "...the key to conserving urea fertilizer nitrogen is to put the urea INTO the soil and not merely on the soil...Urea placed on the soil surface or plant foliage may loose from 50% to 90% of its N as ammonia (gas) if not protected within a few hours of application. Therefore prompting a non-prilled urea solution - which N-Sure is - which does not require turning.

Clay slurry is a well-documented practice.
Clay slurry ions bind with clay soil ions, regardless.

If your pile sheds water it should be vertically-sided and 'crowned' to shed water to the center of the pile. Simple physics.

Robert