Re: Beneficial Soil Microbes

From: Elaine Ingham (Soilfoodweb@AOL.COM)
Date: Wed Dec 25 2002 - 12:48:58 EST


David -

What else is in the cow horn. It isn't just pure silica powder, is it? What do you think manure is? What do you think all that plant material you put in compost, and also into the horn, is all about?

Is compost packed into a horn anaerobic after 1 month? 2 months? 6 months? I know the answer, and if you just thought about it, you'd see the answer too.

What causes things to go anaerobic? People who don't think answer that with "lack of oxygen", but come on, that's not what I asked.

What causes lack of oxygen? You did not seal that cow horn in an airtight container. The cow horn is in soil. Does soil have air passageways?

If you have healthy soil, then there are plenty of air passageways. And Steiner talks about burying the cow horn in CERTAIN places, where the soil should be healthy. Isn't that so? So the soil should have air passageways.

But when you first bury the cow horn with the manure and plant materials in it, what happens? It gets warm. The material in the horn gets hot. Why? How come?

Dang scientists, we always have to know why. Pain in the rear-end, huh?

Why does compost get hot? The bacteria and fungi GROW, increase in numbers. They didn't magically appear in the 501 prep. Come on, man, think. They grew. Heat is a good indicator of microbial growth, AS LONG AS THE GROWTH MEDIUM REMAINS AEROBIC.

But if the bacteria and fungi keep growing, they will use up all the oxygen faster than oxygen can diffuse into the material. If that happens, then things go anaerobic.

Now, with the right set of organisms, SUCH AS IN EM CULTURES, we will not get PUTREFACTIVE anaerobic compounds produced, but fermentative. How do you assure the fact that you will have fermentative decomposition, IF the material goes anaerobic?

Listen carefully. To assure this, you have to inoculate the fermentative organisms.

Most manure comes with a set of the putrefactive organisms. Why? They just went through a rumen. If you have been feeding your animals the wrong foods, too high in protein, with the wrong microorganisms, what comes out will always be stinky. If so, then we need to inoculate other sets of organisms, so IF the compost goes anaerobic, you get microbial waste products that will not harm your plant, that don't produce STINK.

That's an easy way to tell - smell the material.

What does Steiner say to feed animals? Why does he say that? At least in part, to try to make sure you have the fermentative organisms in the manure. Smell your manure. Stink? Wrong set of organisms. Smell ok? Not bad odor? More likely you have the right set of organisms.

You can send your manure samples into SFI and we can tell you if you have the good guys or the bad guys. But why spend that money when your nose will tell you? If your nose can't smell the difference, hire someone who has a nose that can smell the difference.

OK, which costs more, hiring a person to smell the manure (giggle) or sending the samples to SFI? That decision I leave to you, but I know I'd choose the person with the right nose.

But to continue with the BD prep in the horn in the soil - once the microbes use up all the easy-to-use foods in the manure and plant materials, they slow down in growth rate, they do not generate as much heat, and temperature falls. They no longer use up oxygen faster than the oxygen can diffuse in through HEALTHY SOIL. The now-partly decomposed material starts moving back to aerobic conditions.

As water moves into the horn from the soil, it carries a new set of bacteria and fungi, from your healthy soil, into the horn material. These new bacteria and fungi grow, and increase the diversity of the organisms in the BD prep.

Eventually, given enough time, the material in the horn becomes aerobic again. Any stinky, smelly organisms are out-competed, go to sleep. The remaining stinky, smelly materials are used by aerobic organisms as food. But some of those stinky gases may have been lost from the horn, and thus some N, P, S, etc may have been lost from the prep. Anaerobic putrefactive decomposition results in loss of nutrients from the compost.

So, when making compost you have two choices: (1) time to allow the compost to go anaerobic and return to aerobic through simple diffusion processes, or (2) controlling aeration and getting the pile finished within a short time.

Your choice. As I have ALWAYS said, if you'd like to pay attention, the different methods of making compost can produce compost that is just as good as the other.

I have shown the data I was talking about in an e-zine on my website. I have discussed this data, and shown it at Biodynamic conferences. Please attend some of these conferences, you could learn alot from the different speakers. Glen Atkinson was at the last east coast BD conference, and the attendance was not near what it should have been. You could have learned alot.

Go to the SFI website and do some looking. Attempt to not mis-quote me. At least get the numerical values correct when you try to put words into someone else's mouth.

Elaine Ingham

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