[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Till/noTill (was Composted cow manure/rice nutrientcycles)



Hi Mike -

I'm not an expert on tillage equipment.  The person you might want to direct that questionto would be Shep Smith, soilsmith@aol.com

Compost tea  need sto be AERATED.  The reason so many people have had bad experiences with "compost tea" is that the tea goes anaerobic during brewing.  Anaerobic metabolites, unless used up by brewing for three to four weeks, can harm your plants significantly.

Get a tube diffuser the width of your tank, and place on the bottom of the tank.  Bubble the air through (www.magicsoil.com shows how much air is needed, but it's like 3.5 CFM in a 50 gal tank)

Put the compost in a cheap stocking, or laundry bag, about 10 pounds for a 50 gal machine.  Put 4 or 5 ping-pong balls or fish floats in the bag to keep it floating on the surface. 

Use a cup of BLACKSTRAP, food grade molasses, a cup of kelp (Acadian), room temperature water with the chlorine aerated off to begin.

Then, I'm now building a sprayer to rig onto my tractor with big nozzles.  I'm (now don't laugh) going to start a large (50gal) batch of compost test from my backyard compost pile (basically built with kitchen scraps, hay waste, horse manure and starbucks coffee grounds).  Load it into a couple burlap sacks and soak it in an open 50 gal barrel (food grade).  Then mix a solution (what percentage??) of tea to spray the corn (and my garlic).   Any input on this hokey method would be appreciated as well.

Let me know if you think I'm washed.  But I guess in any event its better than washing it all down with synthetics ???  Even if it fails. I'm having fun trying.


Should work.

Hope this helps.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand

"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well, but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things turn out."   --  Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic