That are just as efficient for growing plants
If this is a practical question, would you consider something like vermicompost poop? Sure, it’s gone through a worm, but at some point of tiny and low-energy that becomes pretty indistinguishable from microbial action.
Otherwise, yeah, plain old compost. There’s still going to be microscopic worms in there, but I have no idea how much of it actually goes through their digestive tract, in the end.
Depends on exactly what nutrients your plants are missing. Your own Compost usually works well
Tried and true.
fish guts, leafmold
People mine nutrients for industrial use, so yes.
Yeah, but a lot of the mining is mining bat and bird guano, which is animal poop.
Guano reserves ran out by 1900 IIRC. It’s concentrations of nutrients in ancient mineral deposits now (and peak phosphorus is coming).
What? No they don’t. My cousin runs a fertalizer mining operation down south (like, massive massive shit, not a small operation). Phosphorus, nitrogen, potassium, etc. are mined from ore.
I can’t say that nobody minds areas that would be rich in bat guano, but the vast majority of industrial mining operations for fertilizers as far as I’m aware come from mineral sources.
Fish emulsion, plant compost.
Poop is natural. Just saying.
If you think about it, rotted or decomposed organic materials are basically insect, bacterium and mold poop…Bacteria and fungi aren’t animals, though!
True, but fungi aren’t that distantly related from animals
The bacteria are alive and eat therefore they poop. :) just like they fart in bread or cake :D
That’s what that classic internet clip was all about. “Mmmm cakefarts”
Bacteria arent animals?
Not OP, but in taxonomy most microorganisms (including bacteria) aren’t filed under the “animal” Kingdom therefore aren’t “animals”
Nope. Completey different domain of life.
Elaborating on why thats what you’re looking for may help people give you more helpful answers that meet your needs :)
Not gonna pretend I’m an expert or anything, but
What about compost?
I think I’ve read that seaweed can be good too, but I’m not sure if that’s more of an addition rather than a replacement
I’m pretty sure most fertilisers you get come from either animal waste or petrochemicals
Yes, seaweed is good, and widely used where I live (Also not an expert though). It’s best to let the rain wash some of the salt away first though.
What about blood meal and bone meal? Still animal product but not poop. I’m still pretty new gardening, so not sure on effectiveness.
Depending on what you consider natural and efficient.
If mining is natural there is some volcanic stuff that is nutrient rich. If by natural you mean organic, compost piles produce good fertilisers but they are not as efficient as some might say. They take quite some time to complete their process and get it’s nutrients available for growing plants. Not being efficient doesn’t mean they aren’t good. They are a great way to dispose or organic material and even if compost releases its nutrients very slowly it contributes to the soil health in many other ways that I would say are more important, like increasing biodiversity, making the soil more resistant to changes in pH and facilitating retention of nutrients so they don’t wash out with rain.
Potash
potash is technically a type of fertilizer, it also increases the alkalinity of the soil which can be toxic to plants just as much as making it too acidic.
https://theownerbuildernetwork.co/gardens/2025/10/09/electroculture-gardening/
I literally learned about this less than an hour ago.
My friend was telling me that she’s going to put some copper piping from an old fridge in her backyard garden.
Apparently, this has been a thing for centuries, and only stopped being popular when WW2 demanded all the scrap metal on hand.
I’m not going to pretend to be a scientist, but I think they’ve gone the wrong way with the correlation vs causation on that one. :)
Copper is an essential nutrient in soils.https://www.tfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/tfi-copper.pdf
I’d be very careful about using copper this way. While ingesting small amounts of copper is ok, and in fact a good part of a diet, Ingesting too much copper is not a good thing, and can be toxic.
Having copper piping, etc. in close proximity to a garden risks having it leach into the plants, which might then be ingested. Since copper is a fairly soft metal then rain could slowly corrode it and introduce it to the plants.
A bit more on copper toxicology here.
And that leaching will be vastly influenced by pH. So if your soil or rain is acidic you’ll get a lot more.
fertilizers come in two types. industrial and nonindustrial.
industrial fertilizers are based on industrial processes that generate chemically pure product. this product is usually viewed similar to salts. salt is naturally found in soil, but too much can burn your soil. same thing for industrial fertilizers.
nonindustrial fertilizers are commonly derived. these would be based on “waste” products. not all of them are based on the fecal content, some are processed food wastes, animal waste(dead fish, pork, beef, etc). the process to derive the fertilizer basically speeds up the decomposition of naturally occurring materials found in the world.
you will have better long term results using nonindustrial fertilizer because it is easier for the soil biome to naturally break down the necessary components for plant life faster than industrial fertilizers. this allows the soil to rebound faster and toxicity to remain low.
industrial fertilizers tend to build up in the soil over time and turns the soil toxic inhibiting plant growth aka “burning”.
unless you live in an extreme environment where it’s impossible to grow plants, I would avoid industrial fertilizers.
personally I use the nonindustrial or organic fertilizer with much success.
but too much can burn your soil. same thing for industrial fertilizers.
My dad likes to say this about gardening, and instead of applying a weekly does of fertilizer in one go each week (as recommended), distributes it throughout the week when he waters the garden. Literally microdosing, so you get 1/7 of the weekly dose each day
that’s a good way to do it. you’ll see plants burn up before the soil is too damaged and you’ll even be able to save the plants in most cases.
I’ve thought about adding a tank to my water lines just to make this easier to distribute and I’d probably go this route.
Compost piles are a thing, idk how efficient they are vs manure. One of the reasons farmers use manure is they have so much of it anyways and it’s got to go somewhere. There’s also various plants that do similar work when planted in the soil, something about nitrogen fixing. Whether or not something is natural or not gets hard to define but there are ways of getting plants nutrients that are mostly not animal. I say mostly because it also depends on how you’re defining that and how you store and handle things one what ends up inside it but I imagine a meticulous person could manage it.
The Plasma Channel just released a video about how water exposed to coronal discharge becomes an interesting sort of fertilizer.
If looking for poop alternatives… it’s something. Might be worth looking at aquaponics additives, probably the next alternative to poop is petrochemical though.
