[compost_tea] Re: Defining what is compost tea exactly

From: Kirk Leonard <kirk_at_oregonatural.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 19:46:04 -0700


Hey, Doc, great basic test... for a soil scientist focused on compost and
teas.:-) I am not qualified but I'll take the bait and put in my two cents,
and occasionally punt toward the discusssion. If we all could answer your
questions, I'm sure the world would be a better place and all our gardens
grow better. I look forward to your elucidations, and offer up other
definition thoughts here.

> Define compost <
Last I knew, books have been written on this, and frankly, to me it's still
simply a natural mystery, so I punt on this one. Who'd have thought you
could put a yard or two of dead/dying stuff together with the right moisture
and C:N content, and it would heat up, destroy pathogens, reduce unwanted
seeds, and be converted to living organic matter - ready to support new
life - in mere months? It's a mystery and a natural miracle to me. I can
make it and describe how it needs to be made well, but as for what it IS,
besides great organic matter, and if you made it right, gazillions of
beneficial organisms that will support natural nutrient cycling immediately
(vs. "mulch" which sometimes requires years and can be a nutrient drain for
a while), I can't define compost, or vermicompost for that matter. I would
still like to hear how Alaska Humus was formed, too.

> Define soil <
Good Feeling Good Smelling Dirt. Aggregates, humus, minerals, lots of
organisms and carbon materials, holds water but is not soggy, best
maintained for cultivation with mulch or compost. Healthy plants can create
good soil, too. Conveyed in lots of clays or sand or best of all loams
around the world. Feels good, crumbly in the hand, smells good. Could be a
year old or thousands of years old. Varies widely and wonderfully. Can be
subjected to temporary chemical ruination, which I saw some years ago in the
southern San Joaquin Valley. Last time I was through there was a little
more green but it took some years.

> Define manure <
Animal poop. Usually stinks. Unlike worm castings, needs to be aged or
composted to be plant food. Many raw manures (in moderation, not at
feed lot rates which create large water problems) seem to be fine on soil.
It adds fiber and nutrients, and good soil, water and light seem to be able
to process it well. It also seems to be a material that presents relatively
quick, accessible plant and soil food.

> When does manure become compost? <
When it's been composted properly! Mixed up with other materials usually.
Cow manure and bedding can compost on its own with reduced moisture. We
separate ours and it composts fine, with wood bedding and a little spilled
feed (actually drooled but I hesitate to describe it that way) only other
elements in the mix, right out of the separator (C:N ~25 in /~14 when done -
and bacterial. Seems fungi may not travel well in manures, or are mostly
ingested by animals?) Other manures have other needs on the way to becoming
compost. It all composts, however.

> When (how) does manure become soil? <
I'm totally guessing on this, but if manure "becomes soil" it must do it
quickly because when it's just a little stirred in and gets wet it
disappears quickly, though I haven't looked with a magnifier. As to how it
becomes soil, likely that's via microbial conversion. But never being a man
who shies from a guess, I wonder if it ever becomes soil, actually. I think
it may be consumed/converted by soil organisms and nutrients taken up by
plants before it has a chance to become resident soil, per se.

> What would you call organic matter if it has become anaerobic? <
Stinky, probably. Putrefied organic matter. (Is there an echo in here?:-).
Needing to be aired out, perhaps set in the sun. Thankfully, I have never
had to deal with a large anaerobic problem, so I know nothing more
about this.

> Define what you mean by compost tea. What are the important components? <
Fresh water, mature compost, vermicompost, activated compost, forest duff,
plant matter, maybe some special topsoil, nutrients, humates, kelp,
inoculants of fungi or nematodes, lots of things, even Pablum. The most
important ingredients are clean water and good compost. One of the reasons
I'm here is to keep learning about it. I hesitate to bring this up again
since I got a little chiding before (thought friendly:), but my
grandmother made a fantastic stirred tea that produced delicious vegies and
fruits, great flowers and was fun to make. Stirred. We made it in about
twelve hours overnight. Also aerobic, I believe, since the only time it sat
more than an hour was at night, when DO should be up. I was there by
sunrise to stir, too, whether or not I intended... She had a very effective
strawberry
breakfast wake-up ruse... and I was curious.

I had a great conversation about compost tea with a woman at the market
Saturday. She was real interested in aerated tea, so I think she got some
new information from me about that, believing this listserve is a good
education source. I think I steered her away from SoilSoup, at least...
At the end, she told me how she made a compost tea, just like my grandmother
did fifty years ago: half compost, half water, stir it up, let it sit,
repeat several times over a short time, water the plants with it, use the
solids as a top dressing. Seems to work every time with good ingredients.
I will always call this a compost tea, though the solids dressing adds some
plain composting, too.

AACT is the newest and most powerful kind of compost tea, to be sure. It's
definitely a better compost tea.

> What is the kind of tea you make when you use anaerobic organic matter? <
Potentially a stinky tea, I imagine, but I wouldn't make a tea from stinky
(or too slimy) compost in the first place. What would it become if you
aerated it? (This is a punt. I have no idea.) Is there another easy home
test to detect anaerobic stuff besides smell? Too much slime is way
bacterial. Is that an anaerobic indicator too?

> What is anaerobic tea? Is that the same as when you use anaerobic organic
matter? <
Uh, I don't think so. Tea can go anaerobic with bad nutrient management or
too much time in a bucket without aeration or stirring.

In thinking about anaerobic teas, it seems the most damaging element, apart
from possible pathogens, is likely alcohols, and that maybe a historic
saving grace is that as soon as the tea hits sunlight, air and warm soil the
alcohols quickly volatize, the anaerobes die and become food for aerobes.
But one of the questions out there I hear is might there be some benefit
from the adversity of anaerobic teas in bringing ground around? (e.g.,
weed whacker teas?)

> What do you use to identify whether your tea is anaerobic, or has been
anaerobic? <
My nose. Sorry this is just a home test, but my nose seems to have gotten
better over the years. Seems like you need a DO meter if you don't have a
good nose around. Punt.

"Has been anaerobic" is interesting. I suppose if you had a microscope and
proper stains you'd see a bunch of dead anaerobes. Is there a home test?

> Can you resuscitate anaerobic tea? Can it become aerobic again? How
would you know? <
I don't know. Seems possible. Clever feeding? Pump more air? Use a DO
meter? Find a better nose? Is this something I can teach my cats to do?

> What is compost extract? <
A brown water solution that's been pressure-pushed through a compost pile.
But all teas, hand or machine made, are compost extracts, too.

> Compost leachate? <
A brown water solution that has drained through a compost pile.

> Plant tea? <
Huh? All compost teas are plant teas, ultimately. Microbial teas, nutrient
teas, soil teas, foliar teas, bacterial or fungal teas, bug teas, weed teas,
who knows? This question begs clarification.

If you want to call what I call a nutrient tea a plant tea, that's ok by me,
but it's still made with compost and water so we may be stuck, here, because
I think most folks won't get a distinction from "compost tea." What then
would you call an aerated tea soil drench?

> Manure tea? <
Old time definition for putting manure and water into a barrel and using it
for watering some time later, sometimes alarmingly later, maybe stirred
maybe not, but nobody ever died from it as far as I know. I think they had
the sense not to put it on vegies or fruits eaten raw... My grandma used
selected manure pies in her stirred tea (which also included duff and other
organic matter from her "compost" pile). It always smelled good and we
never put it
on the plants. AACT is different, seeming ok on vegies and fruits, even up
to harvest. TBD, hmm?

A lot of manure teas may have been anaerobic. It's also possible they could
have been fertilizers, or useful biocides. There are several ways to make
safe tea from manures. Bad manure comes from poor sanitary conditions or
bad food for animals, imo, and will probably make bad tea.

What do you call an aerated tea made with good manure compost?

> What is a term that we could use to include all of the above? Compost tea
is NOT the right term. I'd like to suggest agricultural teas as the general
term. <
Hmm. Yah. "Various substances made with organic materials and water?"
Introducing yet another new term and structure is an interesting prospect
but I hesitate to get into that. My quest here is to try to connect what
you and we are doing now with what people have done in the past.
Introducing an entirely new vocabulary for historic if different practices,
named in folklore, seems counter-productive. Better to run with folklore
and expand understanding, but if you want to suggest a new structure, I'm
all ears.

> Please, not nutrient tea. You have not thought that one through and you
are going somewhere you don't want to go with that one. <
Sorry, Doc: Nutrient tea. Perhaps I need to be more clear, though I'd call
it elsewise as long as it made sense. It is a compost tea. A nutrient
compost tea, made with good compost, or better yet vermicompost, has very
different water::compost proportions from an aerated tea, and usually
involves no other nutrients, though it can. The objective is simply to
extract the soluble nutrients, and you use much more compost per gallon of
water. You also get all the organisms present, though you aren't growing
them, simply getting them into the water with some agitation. Nutrient teas
are used perhaps 2-3 times a year. Not to be confused with adding nutrients
in aerated teas which are often used more frequently.

Where am I going? I think you have missed a point on this one.
Vermicompost teas, hand-made from all the small farm/home worm bins I know
anything about, always provide an excellent plant boost, in my experience.
Please don't try to hang me between a drained leachate and a pressure
extract. Stirred vermicompost or compost teas make super compost teas which
emphasize nutrient content, whatever we call them.

> Think things through logically and clearly. Until we come to some
understanding on how these things are defined, and then hold to those
definitions without changing them relative to the point that is being made,
there is no chance of having a useful discussion. So, back to first
principles. <
I do try to think things through logically and clearly, and I appreciate
your insights. Which first principles do you mean? A first principle of
mine is not to try to rename the wheel. Why are you insisting that the only
compost tea is aerated tea? I am not making things up as I go, just
thinking and hopefully deducing more about them as discussions and time
progress.

Here's another set of thoughts: Defining what compost tea is "exactly" is
impossible. Biological content of compost (and water) differs by
microclimates, materials, bioregions and seasons, and compost teas vary by
batch. There is no generalizable "exact" in biology because there are so
many variables (diversity in action, yes!), which is why hyper
control freaks choose chemistry, I suppose. Rather than describing content
the definition of compost tea needs to be a process characterization, with
some content indicators, hmm?

I do believe we should better understand and explain anaerobic teas. If
"steeping" a tea turns out never to be a good thing, we should simply say
so - "Oh yeah, people used to do it that way... but there's a better
way..." - and move on, but it needs to be addressed because so many people
understand compost tea as being made that way.

Every rose enthusiast I ever met brightens up on learning about aerated tea
and what it can do better than steeped or stirred teas. We should be
drawing a line for them, not building a wall. If this peach leaf curl tea
solution works out, as I expect it will, it's another big time thing to grow
with. They spray a lot, as do rose growers. Who doesn't love a good peach
or a beautiful rose? Let's clean out their sprayers and show them compost
tea! I am amazed by my roses this year, on one good nutrient vermicompost
tea drench at the right time, with right weather, apparently. I didn't have
to spray this year... Nah-na-na-na-na-Nah!

I'd return to a structure in my suggestions: There are aerated microbial
teas, stirred nutrient teas, and steeped teas, which may be microbial or
nutrient, anaerobic or aerobic. All with or without other nutrients. Flow
form teas can be done any of these ways and I like the idea of using gravity
for aeration, too. Manure tea is an archaic concept, probably not
recommended unless you know the animals and how the manure has been managed.
They happen in various combinations - an aerated tea has nutrients, a
stirred or steeped tea microbes - but the basic ways they are made are also
functional distinctions. All can be valid, useful compost teas, no matter
what we call them. Should I say compost teas may be greater than we may
think?

-- Kirk
















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Received on Tue Jun 17 2003 - 00:27:24 EDT

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