Pfeiffer Research & Practical Experience

Compost Starter and Field and Garden Spray

Practical biodynamics. Documented experience.

Pfeiffer Compost Starter and Field and Garden Spray offer two ways to bring biodynamic preparations into composting and field management. Compost Starter is a prepared inoculant for compost materials; Field and Garden Spray is formulated for soil and field applications, including work with incorporated crop residues. Current product information and instructions are available from the Josephine Porter Institute.^{1, 12}

A tradition of practical use

Published accounts connect Pfeiffer's preparations with garden heaps, farm windrows, vineyards and the return of crop residues to the soil. This guide brings selected experiences and research findings together, with the source and treatment identified for each example.

Composting. A 1967 comparison reported complete rotting after five weeks in a Starter-treated heap, ahead of a heap receiving separate biodynamic preparations. A later farm account described a twenty-one-day manure-and-hay process using Starter and weekly turning.^{2, 3}

Vineyard management. A Grgich Hills grower interview described higher juice nitrogen in five of six treated blocks following Field and Garden Spray use. The grower recommended it where good moisture and cover crops were available.⁵

Nutrient availability and crop performance. Historical laboratory work reported changes in available soil nutrients and favorable crop comparisons using particular Starter-made composts.^{8, 9}

The following sections explain what was used, what was observed and how each comparison was made. Reported benefits belong to the conditions described; field research and practical accounts provide different kinds of information.

Explore the products: Pfeiffer Compost Starter | Pfeiffer Field and Garden Spray

Compost Starter in practice

A garden-heap comparison

Katharina Hanke built two heaps from the same plant wastes, without manure. One received Pfeiffer's B.D. Compost Starter as it was built; the other received the individual biodynamic preparations. Her report, published in English in 1967, describes the result:

After five weeks Heap No. 1 was completely rotted, while Heap No. 2 was still in the midst of the process.²

Hanke also reported rapid heating in the Starter heap. When the finished composts were subsequently used for lettuce and kohlrabi, she observed no difference in growth or total production. The account documents a faster composting process in this paired-heap observation, with one heap per treatment and no untreated heap. The description of complete rotting is the author's assessment.²

A farm windrow routine

Patricia Smith's 2003 interview with Joe Francis describes three windrows of approximately fifty tons each, made from cow manure and hay. Francis used Compost Starter during construction and turned the material every seven days:

After twenty-one days the cow manure/hay mix has been transformed to compost and is ready for use.³

This account gives a concrete example of a practiced farm routine. Its twenty-one-day timing includes the feedstock, turning and management described; the interview does not provide an untreated comparison or a standardized compost-maturity test.³

Matching the process to the material

Composting results vary with the materials and process. A 1996 barrel study of waxed cardboard and poultry manure/litter reported no observable Starter effect under its controlled-aeration conditions. It used one barrel per treatment and called for further replicated work.⁴ Read alongside the practical accounts, this illustrates why feedstock, moisture, aeration and management belong in any description of composting performance.

For present-day preparation and application, follow the current Compost Starter instructions.¹²

Field and Garden Spray in a vineyard

The Grgich Hills experience

In a published interview, Ivo Jeramaz described beginning a comparison at Grgich Hills in 2007 with fifty treated acres and a fifty-acre control. He reported that juice nitrogen in five of six treated blocks rose from approximately 150 ppm the previous year to 200 ppm after Field and Garden Spray use.⁵

Abigail Porter's 2015 account, drawing on Joseph Brinkley's experience, identifies the measure as yeast-assimilable nitrogen (YAN). It describes applying the Spray after mowing the cover crop and disking it in immediately. The account reports an increase in five treated blocks and no increase in the untreated blocks.⁶

The grower's recommendation

Jeramaz's interview includes this recommendation:

Nonetheless, I would highly recommend it where possible, especially if you have good moisture and good cover crops.⁵

The same interview reports little improvement in dry 2008 and subsequent discontinuation because of application logistics across the vineyard. The later account describes dry-year exceptions and eventually reducing annual application when YAN became too high for the wine being made. These retrospective accounts differ in their follow-up chronology, while both identify moisture and cover-crop management as practical context.^{5, 6}

YAN concerns nitrogen available to yeast in the juice; it is a different measure from grape yield or soil nitrogen. These commercial observations are supported by published accounts, rather than a supplied dataset with randomized allocation and statistical analysis. Their value is a named example of the Spray in vineyard practice.

Crop residues and available nutrients

Returning organic materials to the field

Pfeiffer's 1952 account of California farming describes Starter applied as a spray to crop residues before disking. Salinas-area growers reported easier field preparation and faster breakdown:

Lettuce plowed under decomposed within a few weeks and barley stubble took just half the usual breakdown time.⁷

The account describes residue handling between crops, using the historical Starter preparation in spray form. It does not include measured decomposition curves or replicated field comparisons.

A historical soil-incubation experiment

In a 1952 laboratory experiment, adobe soil from the Oakland area was kept moist in pans. One group received the historical preparation called B.D. Compost Starter Spray in Pfeiffer's manual; another remained untreated. The six-week report and its fifteen-week continuation were reproduced in that 1956 manual.^{8, 9}

Values retain the source's labels and reported units. Although conducted in pans, the report expresses results in pounds per acre; conversion details, sample counts and uncertainty estimates are not supplied.

The measurements show a reported rise in available nutrients, with nitrate peaking at six weeks and subsequently declining. Six-week changes are comparisons with the starting sample: a six-week control row is not printed. The fifteen-week untreated comparison is shown above. These historical measurements concern nutrient availability in the soil tested, rather than a crop-yield measurement or creation of new phosphorus and potassium.^{8, 9}

What Starter-made composts produced

Pea yields in a greenhouse comparison

Greenhouse pea-yield indices in Pfeiffer's 1956 manual compare mineral fertilizer with manufactured B.D. garbage compost, discussed in its Starter-composting context. Untreated basic soil equals 100.⁹

At 4,000 lb/acre, compost produced a reported yield 43.5% above untreated soil and about 5.9% above the best mineral treatment. The response varied with rate.

Lettuce nutrient concentrations

The same manual reports lettuce beta-carotene and ascorbic-acid concentrations from greenhouse pot cultures. The standard nutrient solution equals 100.⁹

Compost values were 56.2% higher for beta-carotene (a provitamin A compound) and 79.0% higher for ascorbic acid than the reference solution.

These comparisons concern whole fertility treatments at different rates; they do not isolate Starter's effect. Replication and statistical uncertainty are unreported, and the pea source has inconsistent nutrient-input calculations. Historical rates are not current product directions.⁹

Field research and practical application

Surface-soil pH in a replicated pasture study

A Washington pasture experiment compared an untreated control, lime and a biodynamic program containing Pfeiffer Field Spray plus other preparations. There were four replicates per treatment in a randomized design. The published 2005-2006 post-treatment pH means in the upper 10 cm of soil were 6.2, 6.6 and 6.4, respectively, with significant differences at P < 0.05. The separate change-from-baseline comparison was not significant, and the study found no significant forage-yield advantage.¹⁰

This records a measured soil response in a replicated combined-program study. The result applies to that program and site; it does not isolate the Spray's contribution.

Grain yields in a Wisconsin comparison

A randomized, four-replicate field experiment included a treatment using Pfeiffer Starter in sheep-manure compost, Field Spray and horn silica. Wheat averages for 1995-1998 and maize averages for 1994-1998 were reported as rounded indices relative to a nettle-compound treatment set to 100:¹¹

The indices imply approximately 8.9% and 3.2% higher averages than the organic comparison. The authors report that compound treatments other than the nettle treatment rarely produced statistically significant grain-yield effects relative to the checks. These are descriptive results for a program containing several preparations.¹¹

Bringing the products into your own practice

Choose Compost Starter for compost materials and Field and Garden Spray for its labeled soil and field uses. Follow the current product instructions for activation, dilution, amount and application timing. Historical process descriptions provide experience and context; the current instructions govern use of today's products.^{1, 12}

Keep a simple record of materials, moisture, timing and the result you want to observe. For compost, record turning dates and progress toward readiness. In the field, record crop or cover crop, soil conditions and application date. These records make the reported experiences in this guide useful points of comparison with your own practice.

Product information and ordering: Compost Starter | Field and Garden Spray

Application guidance: Current JPI preparation instructions

References and source notes

This guide presents selected published accounts and field research. Historical product names and formulations are identified in their context. Quotations retain the source wording, with line-wrap typography normalized. Page numbers below refer to printed pages unless a PDF page is explicitly identified. Sources are identified by author, publication, date and page, with links to current product guidance and publicly accessible papers where available.

1. Josephine Porter Institute, current product descriptions: Biodynamic Pfeiffer Compost Starter and Pfeiffer Field and Garden Spray. Consulted September 27, 2026. These identify current products and intended applications; the historical comparisons are documented separately below. Back to top ↑

2. Katharina Hanke, "An Experiment with Dr. Pfeiffer's B.D. Compost Starter," translated by Norman Macbeth, Bio-Dynamics 82 (Spring 1967), pp. 25-26; quotation and crop observations p. 26. Reprinted from Lebendige Erde, March/April 1967. One heap per treatment. Back to top ↑

3. Patricia Smith, "Interview with Joe Francis," Applied Biodynamics 40 (Spring 2003), pp. 3-6; windrow process pp. 4 and 6; twenty-one-day quotation p. 6. Practitioner interview. Back to top ↑

4. Richard Foote and K. C. Das, "Hall County Waxed Corrugated Cardboard Composting Pilot Project," Proceedings of the 1998 Composting in the Southeast Conference, Athens, Georgia, September 9-11, 1998, pp. 49-60. Starter treatment p. 52; process finding p. 54. The experiment was conducted in 1996. Primary paper. Unreplicated barrel comparison. Back to top ↑

5. Hunter Francis, "Biodynamics Taking Root in the Legendary Napa Valley," interview with Ivo Jeramaz, Applied Biodynamics 71 (Winter 2010-2011), p. 5. Vineyard comparison, follow-up conditions and recommendation. Back to top ↑

6. Abigail Porter, compiler, "Anecdotes: Pfeiffer Biodynamic Field and Garden Spray," Applied Biodynamics 87 (Spring/Summer 2015), p. 17. Vineyard account attributed to Joseph Brinkley's experience. Its phrase "50 mg" lacks a denominator; the surrounding discussion uses mg/l. The numerical table in this guide uses the 150-to-200 ppm values in reference 5. Back to top ↑

7. Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer, "Green Manuring, Organic Fertilizer, Compost in Spring?," Bio-Dynamics, vol. X, nos. 1-2 (Winter-Spring 1952), p. 19. Salinas-area residue-management observations involving historical Starter spray. Back to top ↑

8. Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer, "Availability of Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash in Soils Due to Application of Microorganisms," Bio-Dynamics, vol. X, no. 3 (Summer 1952), pp. 24-25. Continuation: "Availability of Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash in Soils," vol. X, no. 4 (Autumn 1952), p. 30. These are successive reports of the same soil-pan experiment. Back to top ↑

9. Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer, The Compost Manufacturer's Manual: The Practice of Large Scale Composting (Philadelphia: The Pfeiffer Foundation, 1956). Pea-yield table p. 102; lettuce table and chemical-assay footnote p. 103; soil-pan methods and table p. 108. The soil table's untreated value 80 belongs to phosphates; the nitrate cell is blank. Relative changes in this guide are calculated from the printed values. Historical tables do not supply statistical uncertainty. Back to top ↑

10. J. R. Reeve, L. Carpenter-Boggs and H. Sehmsdorf, "Sustainable agriculture: A case study of a small Lopez Island farm," Agricultural Systems 104 (2011), pp. 572-579, DOI 10.1016/j.agsy.2011.04.006. Author-hosted reproduction in H. K. Sehmsdorf, Fifty Years of Biodynamic Farming (2022), pp. 267-283; Table 3 p. 277 (PDF p. 287), Tables 4-5 p. 278 (PDF p. 288). Values checked against the visible tables. Back to top ↑

11. W. A. Goldstein, H. H. Koepf and C. J. Koopmans, "Biodynamic preparations, greater root growth and health, stress resistance, and soil organic matter increases are linked," Open Agriculture 4 (2019), pp. 187-202, DOI 10.1515/opag-2019-0018. Methods pp. 190-191; yield discussion pp. 194-195. Primary paper. The grain averages cited here concern the Pfeiffer treatment package. Back to top ↑

12. Josephine Porter Institute, Pfeiffer Compost Starter instructions, Field and Garden Spray instructions, and preparation-instructions directory. Consulted September 27, 2026. Use the current instructions supplied for the product being applied. Back to top ↑