urea and nitrogen

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by Ray

Besides, just how much poop does an average plant get?

Precisely... they get very little fertilizer of any sort. Which says that whatever little bits that we give them is still probably an order of magnitude more than what they get in nature.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Originally Posted by Ray

OW - where does urea come from in a rainforest environment?

What Water Witchin said. Virtually any mammal.

The important point is, the urease in the roots is not there by happenstance.

Since people can perform research on just about every subject under the sun (and have done so), it is no surprise that, yes, the importance of mammals urinating in the rainforest, as a nitrogen source, has already been studied. Ditto the importance of urea to rain forest epiphytes. I'll leave the Googling exercise to you if you want to look up. Just don't look up when you are in the rain forest (splat).

[Ray]

[WaterWitchin]

I'm tellin' ya... it's all about the monkeys.