Sour Mash Fertilizer

Sour mash fertilizer is a powdery substance made from the compost made up of the agricultural waste from a number of crops, including mangot and supermaize. This material tends to have a yellowish brown coloration. It is extremely rich in minerals, amino acids and other valuable nutrients, making it an extremely potent organic fertilizer. However, its most notable characteristic, at least for people who aren't agronomists, is the extremely powerful sour smell it has, an overwhelming moldy odor that makes sour mash fertilizer extremely unpleasant to work with, to the point that, even when not required for safety reasons, workers will wear filter masks just to not smell the material when fertilizing fields with it.

Sour mash fertilizer is the product of economic expansion during the rule of the Transolar Federation, as the need to make agriculturally viable, partially terraformed with suboptimal soil and water conditions grew. In order to maximize efficiency and reduce waste, several composting combinations where experimented with. The sour mash formulation became the most popular over a period of decades and was eventually made the standard organic fertilizer in the 37th century.

Sour mash fertilizer is utilized most heavily in the agricultural sector, where it has become perhaps the most commonly used ogranic fertilizer in existence. This comes to the chagrin of those who have the misfortune of being agricultural workers who have to handle the material as it is extremely unpleasant to work with. It does not necessarily require specialized equipment, but most people who work with the stuff wearing filter masks just to get out the smell.