Re: [compost_tea] Re: Soaked Tea

From: Frank L Teuton <fteuton_at_sympatico.ca>
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 18:35:00 -0400

Kirk,

The prescribed heating and dessication process should eliminate all
pathogens from manure. Indeed, such heated and dried manure has been around
for a while, decades at least, my grandpappy used it when I was just a
little tyke, so at least 40 years...

As far as chemical and drug residues, sure, they are a problem, heck, even
the plastics in all our tanks and hoses might be a problem (see
www.ourstolenfuture.org). I just meant that pasteurized dessicated manure
might have a lower potential to generate a pathogen problem than poorly
composted manure, plus an inadequately aerated tea system plus too much
added nutrients...

The little bird got me up again this AM, and off I went to mix up soil mix
for seeding more organic veggies. Will bring the tea setup in sometime this
week for on site production for the tomatoes and cukes. 'Tis a sin to kill a
mockingbird, and all that...

Trust me when I say that I will use no manure based compost that hasn't been
composted with care and tested like it should, basically we will use
vermicompost....


But a heated, dried manure based tea not exposed to some outside source of
pathogens, won't spontaneously generate them, and such products are
available (dried manure expressly packaged for tea making) and I see no
reason to shout that the sky is falling, even if such products won't be
bringing much of a foodweb with them....heating and drying kill the E coli
'daider than daid', pilgrim....

See http://www.cog.ca/efgsummer2000.htm#Handling

"Aeration, independent of heating, appears to suppress 0157 in manure. Kudva
et al. (6) found 0157 after more than one year in a non-aerated ovine manure
pile, however in experimentally aerated ovine and bovine manure, it was not
found after 4 months and 47 days respectively. The aerated piles were small,
and the authors speculated that drying cycles were responsible for pathogen
reduction; they remarked that "E. coli O157:H7 was never recovered from the
dry top layer of any manure pile."


Frank Teuton


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kirk Leonard" <kirk_at_oregonatural.com>
To: "Compost Tea Group" <compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2003 11:59 PM
Subject: [compost_tea] Re: Soaked Tea


<snip>.
>
> Frank, thanks for your comments, too. Hope that bird's behaving better.
> I'd loan you my shotgun if I had one. You said you didn't think heated,
> dried manure would be a problem, but I wonder. Has this manure been
> researched? My concerns, besides that pathogens could still make
> it through a process like that, are the chemical and drug residues. As
far
> as I can tell the "processed manure materials" category (#4) in NOP's
> compost recomendations was invented to serve big beef, factory feed lots,
> who also use a lot of chlorines. Could be an air pollution problem, even.
> I'd never heard of it before, anyway. I fear it's just another way of
> dumping damaging chemicals, and what might happen on the ground.
>
> Bob, I can almost feel the shreeking too, thinking about going to work at
> Monsanto. Tell you what, when you apply for that job I'll be right behind
> you.:-)
>
> Before I get to more Bob reply, I want to thank Mike for making clear to
me
> the main problem of old time tea. (Duh) The teas from which the name and
> image of "manure tea" came. "Soaked." SOAKED. I've heard weeks. Eeek!
> Compost tea should not be soaked, hmm? Soaking is easy to detect, and you
> shouldn't do it, as it invites anaerobes. I have learned - observing that
> plants can respond in a day - that you can get all the benefits of a
> hand-stirred nutrient tea in less than an hour - and all the biology goes
to
> the soil, too - so it doesn't seem to need soaking. The other part,
likely
> the larger part of any problems people may have had with simple teas is
the
> compost.
>
> As the good doc says, if it's not in the compost it won't be in the tea.
I'd
> add if she hasn't already that if it is in the compost it can be caused to
> be in the tea. If you're stupid enough. As I recall, the strawberry
> incident Bob mentions occurred because ditch water with manure in it was
> used for watering. Bad water. Nothing to do with compost tea.
>
> Bad compost is the biggest problem with compost tea, not how it's made.
>
> At my farm market yesterday I had another sad conversation with a couple
> whose raised bed garden had gone south with bad compost and it made me
> realize that not only is it hard to get good compost unless you make it
> yourself it's impossible to get it unlaced with clopyralid hereabouts from
> most all suppliers. Sad situation. Oregon made a better law this year
but
> it'll be a couple years before we can be sure. It's good we are learning
> and asking about quality of composts.
>
> Bob -- On NO NO NO... what tempo are you on? I can think of several good
> tunes. Seriously, I'd like to think we could harmonize, and I would like
> greatly if you would cite an incident of the following:
>
> > Scenario - church pot luck serves a great salad. x members subcome to
> > E-coli. E-Coli takes a kids life and another kids liver. Gardener is
> > suspect cause. E-coli is taced to "Compost TEA" that was used to water
> > the lettuce.
>
> I can imagine this happening but my skepticism is peaked. (OD: Who could
be
> that stupid?)
>
> Yes some ecoli was put on fruits by really dumb growers in California,
> watering. Have you ever heard of an instance of a problem with a compost
> tea, however it was made? Has anyone out there heard of this? Please say
> so if so. Seems we need to know this.
>
> I think you are over-reaching, Bob. Simpler teas can be good teas, too.
> Stirred teas sprayed can be beneficial.
>
> Ecoli problems are big beef problems in this country today, not compost
> problems, and I fear they could become compost tea problems if processed
> manure materials are used to make tea, all you oxygen watchers out
there...
> And the way USDA would have it, manure compost is a problem, eh? This is
> way whacky and needs to be fixed.
>
> Think of us in Corvallis today. We will be working on manure and I expect
> to be amazed again.
>
> -- Kirk





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Received on Mon Jun 30 2003 - 23:58:25 EDT

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