Re: [compost_tea]: Small diameter black walnut branches chipped as mulch

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 10:23:34 -0400

Sorry to be so slow in responding to e-mails, but I'm slowly chewing my way through about 560 e-mails that came in over the last couple days. I apologize for my backwardness, and hope you all have patience with me.

In response to Merla's question about tannins, terpenes and phenolic compounds in natural materials -

All woody material has some level of hard-to-break down material. It is the plant's effort to protect itself against pathogens, and in the case of black walnut, a particularly effective terpene occurs.

You have choices with these materials. Put the materials in a pile after you chip, and let the volatile terpene or phenol go away. Takes 4 weeks? Maybe longer, turning the pile helps the material to volatilize.

Add a tea with good fungi in it, use material from an old wood chip pile to enhance the fungi, and maybe even some bacteria, that chew up the plant compounds.

But the terpenes also may provide a weed suppressant that you want to have in the plots. If you put the black walnut in some areas, but not in others, then you can assess the impact of the walnut terpenes on the weeds. I do not know of any scientific literature that has assessed the impact of black walnut on weed species, so here's another SARE grant that should be done!

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

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Received on Wed May 07 2003 - 13:18:25 EDT

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