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Decaying animal and plant body parts are examples of humus. The word 'humus' refers to organic matter within soil. It's formed from the aerobic or anaerobic breakdown of animals and plants into the basic elements from which they originally are formed.

Aerobic refers to breakdown in the presence of adequate amounts of air, moisture, and temperature. Anaerobic refers to that same breakdown in the absence of appropriate levels of oxygen. Aerobic breakdown takes place in nature and within compost piles. Anaerobic breakdown takes place in nature and within landfills.

Two important elements that emerge from the breakdown are carbon and nitrogen. In fact, those are the two main elements with which composting is concerned. For example, brown colored materials from the yard tend to be carbon rich. Green colored materials such as fresh grass clippings tend to be nitrogen rich.

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15y ago

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