I really liked your design idea and adapted it to a rectangle using pallets this past fall. Filled it with horse stall cleanout, leaves and grass clippings. (grass from collecting the leaves with the riding mower) Topped it off a 2nd time with additional leaves and manure a week later. I have a video on my channel for this with credit to Deigo and link to his design concept video.

Agree with your approach to detailed analyses. People for thousands of years have been making and effectively using compost without glass let alone microscopes. As long as it isn't putrid (obviously isn't from the video footage) then it should provide a lot of benefit.

WELL DONE Diego!

Be nice, be thankful, and do the work. Words to live by! 🙏

Man I was waiting for this one! Your earlier videos talking about them inspired me to start one a handful of months ago

Thanks for the update. I personally feel that a static pile or windrow is much less work. I tried a JS bioreactor and found it to be very labour intensive compared to making a good ol' pile with the tractor. I'm planning a windrow that I add fresh material on one end and harvest from the other. Giving it a full year to compost.

I built the same last fall- filled it with a mix of manures- cow, horse, goat, chicken, wood chips, rotten wood from the forest, spoiled hay, old straw- set it on the ground to allow worms to retreat during our winters -30c today- easier than my 2 traditional J-S reactors, significantly more volume. Time will tell.

LOVE IT ! "The Diego Double Ring" thanks for the update. I like the idea of doing a new one every 6 months. Might give that a try.

I love the ideas of different styles of composting

Hi Diego, It's worth pointing out that the reduction in volume is caused mostly by offgassing of ammonia and CO2. Carbon in manure is more labile, whereaas in woodchip there is more recalcitrant C (which eventually becomes humus).

Love the idea. Nothing is stopping you from just filling it up again untill you have more than 1/3 of a bioreactor worth of compost. I like this idea because when your out gardening, and doing things around the house you tend to accumulate alot of things that could compost but it tends to be a chore if you have to go out and turn the new stuff into the pile. This way you could just throw it in there and when you have time fill the nitrogen ring. Throw some water at it every now and than and let it work its magic..

Your commitment to the experiments and keeping up with your videos is quite impressive lol. Thanks Diego

Sir As long as the reactor has 2' walls couldn't it be any length such as length of my garden or behind garage. For now I am prefixing into my compost several months before use for the bio Mico benefits You are inspiring garden testing as we all have different garden temperature, soils,minerals and mini different garden soils Thanks for your teaching Sir

Interesting experiment and observations. Thanks for sharing

Thank you dude. Respect from Africa 🇿🇦

I've actually been waiting for this. I tried something similar right before I found your video last year. I took 4 inch pvc and drilled a bunch of holes in about 6 pipes and put those throughout the pile. I got impatient and didn't stick it out long enough. So I'm anxious to see what would've been if I didn't cut it short.

A million thankyous for what you do and sharing it.

Good to know mulching the pile helps with moisture retention, did that with mine I built recently hoping it would.

In Finland is one entrepreneur who has 24 hour composting system. I don't know how this work and how much it needs energy. This entrepreneur has said in one news article how she get idea for her system from Tokyo's McDonald. In Japan is used somekind fast composting system where waist is ready spread to field after 24 hours. This technique might have something good for composting and I think it good check this more what it hold in.

To equal the initial volume of a Diego double ring 6' tall (6' outer diameter, 2' inner) a non-aerated cone would be (before shrinkage) about 10.5 feet diameter and 5.25 feet tall, for a 45 degree angle of repose. And for a 30 degree angle of repose, it would be 12.5 feet wide and 3.6 feet tall. And a J-S size (5'/1') holds 3/4 the volume of a Diego (6'/2') size.

Because of of the fencing I had to purchase, I had enough for TWO double-ring bioreactors just like this. One was overkill for my property. The second one just takes up space. I'm going to flip the compost from the one I used into the empty one. I might even cut part of it down - so it's more of a "C" design - with better access.

Thanks for another great video! I agree with the not needing to do the lab/microscope thing. If you were trying to sell it, then it'd be different. I want to get a microscope and learn the biology for my own shits and giggles.

It's not about 'IF the material breaks down or not', but about WHAT is actually inside your end product. For this you would actually need a microscope and it would be great to have a biology test done on it, to see how well it has gone.

That's what I done in my back yard..everyone can and make and share with farmers..

One of my thoughts was you should mulch above the irrigation ring ..... And there goes Diego , saying you should just mulch the top

Great info..:thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the video! I’m looking forward to your look back at the Geobin composter

Thank you Diego. I too have limited space so the bio would not be practical for me.

Hi Diego - 1. It would be interesting to see any observable differences in the pile along a line from the center out to the outside circumference to show what influence, if any, proximity to the air source has. 2. The F:B ratio (fungal to bacterial) is the ultimate indictor of success. I use a $10/test Microbiometer to monitor performance of my bioreactors. 3. It looked like your pile reduced to about one third it's original volume. My bioreactors with primarily tree leaves are usually ready when I get to 45% volume. Your thoughts?

thanks diego. very nice video.What is the internal temperature of the compost with this system. Does it cause pest formation on the outer surfaces since there is no mixing? thanks

Diego do use palets and forget the biology factor. Worms will find a way to enter the pile no matter what. Mine is full of them and it is on a plastic palet. As for soil biology if you must do inoculate the pile with some of last year compost but I highly doubt it will even need doing for a largely manure pile.

Love you Diego!

Neat stuff, as usual. Thanks. Was curious when you first set this up why you had a 2' center, rather than a 1' center with a 5' diameter. Would still have the 24' avg aeration/penetration w/ the nearly same compost payload..

awesome well done results!

Are you sure that a lot of the height reduction wasn't due to losing fine particles through the chicken wire sides?

I thought the whole point of the JS reactor was NOT to just create "compost" but to create a sort of fungal / bacteria community of spores(?) that can be used as an inoculant of sorts into otherwise sterile soil such as tilled croplands that have been allowed to fallow/burn up in the sun. My compost pile is "easy" but don't tell the wife! She really appreciates it when I 'laboriously' hump the kitchen & coffee scraps to the pile. Yes, I do keep a garden fork right there to stir it up occasionally. 😉 but watering it in constantly would be pain. Not doing that here in MI.

What I want to know is how the bioreactor with the wood chips did. Have you unwrapped either the original Sue Johnson reactor or your reactor with wood chips yet? If so please leave a link to the video.

Asked this on another video, from your podcast, one of your guests said he doesn't use horse manure because of dewormers and antibiotics used in the horses. Are you worried about these things for the compost or for your future tomatoes?

great video diego, thanks for contributing to the work, an intresting idea i think to your work ,could be what ingredients contribute to what kinds of biology at the end product, or what method differences might get you there. i have a scope so i should get contributing :)

I make mine in back yard and if everyone does this use a section of your yard you can help even if it a chicken coop more

Interesting video. No microscope view yet I see soil food web video links here and you don't believe. Hmmm

I have 5 acres so this seems to be a good option for me. I do wish there had been a mix of manure and vegetation so we could see how that would have fared.

I wonder if you could convince horse stables to install a bioreactor that you could "service" - e.g. take the composted results off their hands.

Why it doesn't have clay consistency?

Do you have a compost sifter?

❤❤❤❤

There’s no point in going through all this work without measuring the most important end result, which is plant growth. Also, what are you comparing your compost to? I still can’t find comparisons of the finished product of all the compost reactors you built in another video. I will say Johnson-Su showed the compost at the end of his method and it was almost like playdough. Do a video of the different reactors you built, filling each with same material, adding each to separate pots each with same species of plant and see what happens. Don’t post bits of the unfinished “experiment” wait until it is completed and then post the results. Thanks