Barrel Compound Preparations – Making Biodynamics More Accessible

What Is Barrel Compound?

Barrel Compound (BC) is one of the most practical and widely used compound preparations in biodynamics. Originally formulated by Maria Thun, it allows the powerful effects of the six compost preparations to be pre-integrated into a single, ready-to-use form. This makes it especially helpful for those new to biodynamics or working with limited compost resources.

BC is typically made by mixing fresh cow manure with basalt rock dust and crushed eggshells, then adding all six compost preps (BD 502–507) into the stirred mixture. The blend is fermented in a buried barrel or brick-lined pit and becomes dark, colloidal, and sweet-smelling.

What Maria Thun claimed from the beginning is that the pre-stirring of the manure, basalt powder, and eggshells allows one to apply the finished BC after a mere twenty minutes of BD stirring.
– Hugh J. Courtney, Applied Biodynamics¹

At JPI, this preparation is used in workshops, demonstration plots, and on larger acreages where efficiency and rhythm must meet.

Practical Variations and How They Work

BC isn’t the only compound preparation. It stands alongside Pfeiffer’s BD Compost Starter, Pfeiffer's BD Field and Garden Spray, and Podolinsky’s Prepared 500 as efforts to extend the reach of the original preparations. These methods arose from different challenges:

• Europe: BC helps apply compost forces to soil with minimal stirring.
• America: Pfeiffer developed a microbiologically potent Compost Starter.
• Australia: Podolinsky added all six compost preps directly to BD 500.

As Courtney explains:

In America, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer... extracted and cultured some fifty-five different bacteria and other organisms ... virtually all of which were found in the compost preparations and the BD 500.
– Biodynamics for Beginners, 257–258.²

These approaches share a common goal: to honor Steiner’s call for spreading the preparations as widely as possible to heal the earth.

The Spiritual Science of Compound Preparations

Steiner insisted that the biodynamic preparations were not substances but forces. Each regional innovation has been an attempt to preserve those forces while adapting to new contexts. Maria Thun emphasized the living calcium of eggshells; Pfeiffer focused on subtle microbial life; Podolinsky prioritized rhythmic, full-field application.

The most important thing is to make the benefits of our agricultural preparations available to the largest possible areas over the entire earth, so that the earth may be healed... The experiments can come later.
– Rudolf Steiner, quoted in Hugh Courtney, Applied Biodynamics³

By integrating the original compost preparations into broader methods, these compound approaches extend the spiritual reach of biodynamics. BC and its cousins become tools not of compromise, but of transmission.

📚 Footnotes

1. Hugh J. Courtney, “Expanding the Biodynamic Preparations,” Applied Biodynamics, no. 71 (2010–2011): 251.
2. Hugh J. Courtney, Biodynamics for Beginners (JPI, 2023), 257–258.
   
3. Rudolf Steiner, quoted in Hugh Courtney, Applied Biodynamics, no. 71 (2010–2011): 247.