Acceleration Benefits of QuikSoil®

QuikSoil® 2600 in conjunction with the BACS system (Biologically Accelerated Carbon Stabilization) results in greater levels of maturity when tested by Dewar Flask reheat, CO2 production, and ammonia production. Typically, composting is a sequential process, accomplished by different levels of activity occurring one after another. Imagine a documentary showing a leopard taking down an antelope on the African veldt. The leopard eats its fill, followed by hyenas, then vultures, and so on according to strength and size. The leopard gets its choice of the food, and the remaining groups settle for less and less desirable food - by the leopard's standards. This is sequential decomposition. During and after all this visible dining, microbial digestion is occurring as well. In many ways the process is similar to its visible counterpart. The hardiest, fastest, and often largest microbes get the best food. To a microbe, "best" means the food which yields the most energy for the least energy expended. When the second wave of microbes develop, their food sources are now composed of the compounds the first group were unable to digest, and the bi-products created during preparation of the compounds they could digest. As decomposition proceeds, more and more population shifts occur in conjunction with growing complexity of available substrates (foods), and growing energy expenditure to yield ratios.

Typically, microbes proliferating in more complex and energy expensive environments have developed the ability to digest wide varieties of substrates. They have developed these broad digestive skills out of necessity as they are unable to compete successfully for more easily digestible resources. If the food choices are chocolate cake or coffee grounds, and you are faster than me. Then I will need to learn to love coffee grounds.

The BACS process enables many of these less capable but highly adaptive bacteria to develop early in the process rather than later. Due to their broad digestive skills, many parts of the decomposition process can be accomplished almost simultaneously, and the sequential processes can be accelerated. QuikSoil® 2600 accomplishes this by adding specific substrates which cannot be digested by most strains, and the necessary enzymes to allow these strains to begin digestion rapidly. In this manner, creatures that would not normally be able to compete successfully early in the process are able to establish colonies and flourish throughout the composting mass.

While the exact process is proprietary, the concept is relatively simple. In nature, once potential food is located, a microbe may need several minutes or hours to build the enzymes required to facilitate digestion. During that time lag, the opportunity to grow and reproduce may be lost or the resources may be secured by faster, hardier strains. Thus, competition determines the population characteristics and thus the decomposition rate of the decomposing mass. QuikSoil® 2600 provides the food and makes it immediately available by supplying the required enzymes and co-enzymes as well. The net result is greater population, and more diverse population, which translates into faster decomposition. In effect, finished compost - stable compost - can be defined as material which has been so fully digested that the remaining compounds are chemically inhospitable (hydrophilic acids) or so complex that more energy is needed to digest them than is yielded in return (humic acids).