Re: Beneficial microbes - composting

From: Elaine Ingham (Soilfoodweb@AOL.COM)
Date: Fri Dec 27 2002 - 16:47:20 EST


Hi David -

I think Steiner knew about the organisms in organic matter, but didn't write
about them much because it is a complex subject. He knew his audience. But,
getting the organisms back into compost is why Steiner told people to bury
cow horns in good, healthy soil. I've pointed this out several times
already.

Steiner didn't tell people to make compost in the middle of an ag field, or
in parking lots. Woodlots and forests are important as reservoirs of very
beneficial organisms, but the beneficials are concentrated in a very thin
layer in that reservoir. They are concentrated in the O horizon, and within
the O horizon, in the humus layer of the O horizon. That's where you would
take an inoculum handful. This tiny fraction of the forest floor is what
would be removed by people in order to get the beneficials.

Consider that just by harvesting truffles from the forests in Europe, people
have just about destroyed the natural fungal population. They don't even
remove the forest floor, they just disturb it. But over the course of just a
few decades, edible truffle populations have fallen to near extinction, if
the mycologists in Europe are to be believed. Commercial production has
replaced some of the production, but acid rain and global climate change
haven't helped the situation any.

In the US, we see the Forest Service in many parts of the U.S. requiring
permits, and putting limits on mushroom picking for commercial purposes. We
have to preserve this resource, not exploit it further. As I have already
said, if you have your own forest, and want to mess it up, that's your
choice. It would be much wiser to remove just a few handfuls to get the
organisms in your own compost pile, and place your compost pile next to the
forest instead of disturbing that resource.

In Australia, the forests are extremely depauparate in that humus layer where
the beneficial fungi live and make humus. Where we have tested the forest
floor in Australian forests, disturbance has harmed that humus layer. Where
the forests are less disturbed by human or animal impacts, there are more
beneficial fungi present. This observation begs the question of what has
happened in Australia? Are the forests soils naturally deficient in
humus-developing fungi? Or has the level of disturbance already been so
great that the forests are in decline, and thus are very disease susceptible?


The spread of different fungal diseases through forests in many parts of
Australia is very disturbing. My understanding from reading Australian
newspapers is that the problem is extensive. The erosional problems
developing because forests are being lost is impacting water quality all over
the continent. The Great Barrier Reef is in decline, because of the
erosional problems.

Is this problem developing because we have already destroyed much of the
fungal community that used to be there? Just a question, but the little bit
of observation we have done suggests a relationship. Arid climates are very
fragile. Tropical soils are extremely fragile. It doesn't take much
disturbance to lose a forest when it's already hanging on by just a thread.
-----------------
You have to read Hoitink (that's right, Ohio State University) carefully, and
understand exactly what mix of organic matter he is using. His conclusions
make sense in the larger picture only when you understand that he uses fir
bark as his main ingredient in his "compost". Of course a pile of fir bark
immobilizes N (think about the C:N ratio in the starting materials!), but you
can't conclude that ALL compost will behave the way firbark compost behaves.
Hopefully, you will start with something other than mostly fir bark.

So, read the Luebke's writings about composting. Their tradition is straight
from Pfeiffer, which of course links directly with Steiner's work as well.
All the work that SFI has done on compost has supported the Luebke tradition.
 SFI gives credit where credit is due, and don't try to claim we are the sole
authorities in the field. A MIX of starting materials, including fungal
foods and bacterial foods, and the high N needed to control temperature.

Temperature is critical in the composting process. Hoitink lets the compost
get
TOO hot, which kills the bio-control organisms as well as everything else.

Answer? Don't let the compost get that hot. How hot is hot? No more than
155 to 160 F. Control that temperature by controlling the amount of high N
containing material you add to the pile, and by turning at the appropriate
time. DO NOT LET THE PILE GO ANAEROBIC, BECAUSE THAT TOO KILLS MANY OF THE
BENEFICIAL ORGANISMS YOU NEED.

Let me point out that the activity stain we use is fluorescein diacetate.
But we go one better than what Hoitink does, we identify the organisms that
are active. And please realize that used as SFI uses this staining
procedure, we can differentiate active aerobic from anaerobic organisms.

Hoitink adds the FDA to soil and measures the fluorescein released. Much
like a Solvita test, this just measures a level of a certain set of enzyme
activity in the soil. There's alot of esterase immobilized on clay, sand,
silt and organic matter, which should not be included in assessing current
organism activity. By doing the direct counts, we exclude that extraneous,
left-over activity.

Of course, if you want to know about non-organism associated esterase enzyme
activity in the soil, then combining direct FDA assessment, and the FDA
hydrolysis, you can figure out non-organism esterase activity. It all
depends on what you want to know.

Do we know the answer to everything? No. There's lots more that still needs
to be understood.

For instance, the question Steve Diver brought up the other day -
fermentative versus putrefactive anaerobes. SFI in Corvallis has just
started to differentiate these processes, and now offers a way for you to
figure out if you are doing a "not-so-harmful" anaerobic fermentation, versus
a not-beneficial putrefaction. This is still very early in the process of
trying to figure this out, so the results will be interesting, useful, but
will suggest more questions than we'll answer right at first.

Not available yet in Australia. This is a US-only assay. It isn't
reasonable for Australians to send compost, soil or tea to the U.S. for
assessment, because the organisms in the samples would change too much by the
time they got here. So, maybe some day these additional assays will be
available in Australia, but not until more people in Australia understand the
need to understand the biology in their soil, compost or compost tea.

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


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