Re: [compost_tea] Re: Soak in a Bucket CT

From: Wayne Lewis <lewiswayne2_at_gci.net>
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 17:17:51 -0800

Kirk, I think you need to hit the old rewind button. If I understand
your continuing concern, it's that you don't want manure teas to be
unfairly maligned, misunderstood and treated differently -- and
finally perhaps even prohibited by regulation -- than compost tea and
that the best way to do that is to pretend that manure tea is really
just another form -- in fact the great granddaddy of -- what people
have recently come to call "compost" tea. No it isn't. Neither is
Alaska Humus tea. Neither is worm casting tea.

Compost is compost. Manure is manure. Humus is humus. Worm castings
are worm castings. As we all know, the common trait and appeal
amongst them for us is that they each contain a jillion/squillion
microbes across many species and have the potential to restore or
enhance the soil (and foliar) foodweb applied either directly as soil
amendments or as teas. Where they part ways is in their respective
potentials to contain chemical residues and/or harbor, propagate and
transmit pathogens. The fact that this is inconvenient or
unfortunate doesn't change things. In fact that very distinction is
basically the reason we started our company. Why? Because not only
do we know what's in our humus, we know what's not in it. Unlike
manure, for instance, Alaska Humus didn't pass through a colon on its
way to becoming Alaska Humus. It became humus over thousands of years
of in-the-ground decomposition by countless beneficial microbes. As
a consequence, there's no prospect that it even harbors, say, E.coli
or Weed-B-Gone or antibiotics to begin with. Nor was it ever
anearobic. Not so with manure. And even though that puts advocates
like you in the position of constantly having to prove a negative,
the difference is nevertheless real, fundamental and important.
Which is not at all the same as saying it is fatal to the prospects
for regulatory approval of manure tea or that I have a bias against
manure tea or anybody's use of it. I don't. But regulators may
because the contrast is still clear and unavoidable. So I don't
think trying to advocate and elevate the notion that we should all
just agree that steeped manure tea is in every way indistinguishable
from -- and therefore as consistently beneficial and benign as --
aggressively aerated, nutrient-enriched compost or humus tea is
either realistic or useful.

Wayne Lewis, Alaska Humus Company, Anchorage


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Received on Fri Jun 27 2003 - 22:03:27 EDT

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