Re: question for elaine

From: Elaine Ingham (Soilfoodweb@AOL.COM)
Date: Sat Jan 04 2003 - 05:00:32 EST


Hi Robert -

Not such a simple question. There are harmful aerobes. And beneficial
anaerobes.

It's just, in general, the conditions in compost and tea, if kept aerobic and
the appropriate foods are added, will select for mainly beneficial organisms.


The reason we choose the food resources that we do is to give the beneficials
an extra edge. The foods recommended for tea should select for the
beneficials.

If oxygen is low, reduced, or clearly anaerobic, the disease organisms will
win, for the most part, in competition with other organisms. Certainly human
pathogens do better when the aerobes cannot compete with them.

Think of the conditions in your digestive system. Definitely low oxygen
concentrations, which lets E. coli grow and do it's function, which we all
need to have. E. coli is a normal inhabitant of your colon, and you need to
have it in the anaerobic part of your digestion.

When dealing with most compost, the putrefactive bacteria typically WERE high
in number inside the animal digestive system. In the composting process, we
selected for the beneficials by getting the material aerobic and making sure
the starting materials didn't result in the compost too hot, or anaerobic..

We want to continue to select the beneficials by maintaining aerobic
conditions. And by adding the right foods to let the beneficials grow.

OK? Make sense?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com


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