Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/1114/en

escapes as gas through the skin of the heap into the outer air (Figure 16). In the BKV the maximum was reached after three to four weeks, then falling away rapidly after seven weeks and thereafter uniformly toward the end of the trial after one year. The ammonia degassing behaved differently: it set in at the very beginning, reached its peak value in the second and third week, and had fallen to nearly zero after six weeks. During this period of ammonia emission — and with protein-rich materials such as vegetable waste also of hydrogen sulphide — clouds of odour make their way outward that should as far as possible remain within the heap: "an organic thing is the healthier, the more it smells inwardly and the less it smells outwardly." The odour emanation is a sign of a still rampant, formless activity. It points to irretrievable losses of substance. These are checked by the fungal growth (cap fungi) that arises in the second phase. It ensures — though itself proliferating and permeating the entire heap — a suppression of the bacterial decomposition that dominates in the first phase. Parallel to the fungal development, nitrate forms in place of ammonia from this point onward, its content increasing steadily over the following months and entering into humus formation by way of protein-like precursor stages.