[compost_tea] Re: Soak in a Bucket CT & NOP; Manure

From: Kirk Leonard <kirk_at_oregonatural.com>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2003 17:04:31 -0700

Happy US Independence Day!

I think Doc E (6/30) has posed a clearer understanding of compost tea as one
among many biological water extracts, and this seems like a turning point,
maybe. Thank you Graeme for your comments, too. I promise when this
gall-damn NOP & CT thing is done I won't perturb nearly as much as I may
have. Good to hear from you. Where's Jose?

First I want to say clearly I HAVE NEVER ADVOCATED MANURE TEA, and yes I
understand manure has pathogens in it, ma'am. Many more pathogen
possibilities than USDA or anybody else understands. Hmm? Life is not 100%
safe and CT is being subjected to excessive and inappropriate scrutiny
(screw tiny?) under NOP, as is manure. Composted manures and compost teas
are better than NOP thinks.

Last I knew, only about 5,000 of 85,000 or so chemicals we've put out there
have had similar scrutiny, and NOP's National List still has more
"synthetic" than "natural" materials. I bet most of those synthetics have
not been "proven safe." There is a painful irony here, in that it seems
near impossible for any CT to cause lasting harm. Seems clear to me CT will
prove to be certifiably sound, but it may be years delayed in this process.

As I learned at the Tilth meeting Monday, manure as a documented soil
amendment goes back at least 4,300 years, compost probably 2,500. I find
USDA's problems with it really dumb and organically counter-productive.
Personally, I think manure probably goes back longer, closer to when animals
discovered plants, and vice versa, hmm?

As the compost groups at the meeting suggested, which is logical given NOP's
direction, we could get to the point where folks would have to NOT have any
manure in their composts or teas to be certified under NOP. How absurd is
that... not be be able to use manures for soil fertility?

This would include manure composts, by the way, because they often contain
trace amounts of pathogens no matter how well made. I learned Monday that
vermicomposts could pass seemingly nasty things, too. If 100% pathogen-free
is the goal of NOP (or the ruse...) then manures will no longer be allowed
in certified organic agriculture. Boy is this some progress... maybe in
outer space?

> Good to see you yesterday at the manure summit. The meeting wass useful
as a way for Tilth to get a quorum for support of the ideas expressed. I
appreciate that Oregon Tilth supported this and we didn't have to pay a
registration fee! <

Good to see you again, too, and I also appreciated the excellent lunch I
didn't expect... T'was a good event. Nick Andrews and other Tilth folks did
a good job. Presenters were excellent. Too bad USDA didn't show up.
Mathews didn't even send a comment. Cowards, sluggards, they? I believe
that's the case. They have many staff people who could've been there.

> What became apparent at the meeting, and what I have maintained for some
time, is that we have to clearly define the different kinds of WATER
EXTRACTS that people use. <

I agree this is a basic biological distinction. Compost tea is one of a
number of natural water extracts. AACT is the newest and most promising.
And a huge development, in my opinion. Other teas made over a short time
with water and good compost are also good compost teas, if for different
purposes and with different resources. "Hand" teas, "simple" teas,
"stirred" teas made with GOOD COMPOST AND WATER have a place and are valid
compost teas. Today, not just yesterday. They have been and can be scaled
up to AACT proportions, too.

> We have to get off the position that we should lump all these materials as
compost tea just because people have lumped many of these things together
over the last 5,000 years. We need to separate them. <

Agree. Again, I never recommended manure tea, nor did I lump it with
compost tea, eh? The "lump" here is "biological water extracts," as you
suggest. Manure tea may have a place but I don't know what it is. Never
made any personally.

> So, compost tea is a water extract of compost THAT IS BREWED. Typically
nutrients are added for the express purpose of ENHANCING BENEFICIAL
MICROBIAL GROWTH. Only if you use compost can you call it compost tea. <

I still prefer the notion of aeration. ACT, aerobic compost tea, or AACT,
actively aerated compost tea, or simply aerated compost tea, makes the same
tea and are clearer representations of what's happening. "Brewed" is
arcane, misleading, and too macho, dammit!:-) And again, I do not accept
that CT has to be electrically aerated or "brewed," as long as it is made
with good compost.

ACT, AACT, ABCT are all the same thing. Part of a couple of CTs and a bunch
of other biological water extracts.

> So, plant tea is a water extracts of plant materials (no compost) brewed
for some period, with or without added nutrients. Added nutrients are for
the purpose of enhancing beneficial organism life. <

Ya. Gotcha. Only ever used these other plants in tea for drinking,
actually... I'm a neophyte on this. I know nothing about plant teas
otherwise. Clearly they're not compost teas. Sun tea was something I set
out in the afternoon sun in a gallon jar of water with some teabags in.
Stir it up every once in a while, let the sun heat it. Great stuff to
drink.

> Sun tea is just putting compost in water, out in the sun. UV does not
penetrate water, or plastic much more than a few micrometers. When we did
experiments in the lab on the ability of UV to mutate bacteria by harming
DNA structure, we could stop any mutating effects by placing a simple
plastic lid over the dish of organisms, no matter how intense the UV. <

Tell you what Doc, best I can tell UV helps break down petrochemicals and
can help bad compost. I appreciate you have an idea about UV impact on DNA,
but that's well beyond me. Good to know it's easy to protect natural
organisms from UV mutation and that it doesn't penetrate water well.

> The exposure to the sun doesn't do much to harm organisms in water. The
reason the tea did not go anaerobic is because he apparently did not add any
additional food resources to the brew. Did he actually apply any physical
force to extract teh organisms? Then maybe the "sun tea" was actually a sun
leachate. If no force is applied to extract, there is little likelihood of
extracting the orgnaisms off the compost and into the water. <

Sun Tea made with vermicompost was stirred up well on starting, covered and
left to sit in the sun, steeped overnight, and shaken well continuously
during next morning application, and there were no added nutrients. Just
good vermicompost. Not a leachate to me. A nutrient-oriented compost tea,
including organisms. An infusion of goodness, it seems. Only used as a
soil drench. Solids were top-dressed in the watering process, so good OM
was added, too. I think it was Mike who recently said he'd used a similar
tea for foliar applications, and as I think of that, I see no reason not to
think it could be a good foliar nutrient treatment, too, less the good
chunky stuff.

> Manure teas are made with manure. <
Ya. Never drank one, though I might if other folks around did... ACT is
better, and yes, so is composted manure. If it's not composted or
vermicomposted, it's manure, I agree. I will give up on aged manure, though
it's a good feedstock for compost or vermicompost, usually. Many have made
apparently beneficial teas from aged manures, so I have to think some value
may be there. Open to that possibility, anyway.

Raw manures are the same class in which NOP puts Compost or Vermicompost
Teas today! My first encounter with someone who actually worked with raw
manure was at the Tilth meeting. Enjoyed meeting and hearing Steven Ingham,
a
UWisc prof and researcher. He found seasonal differences in the effects of
raw manure on soil and showed that whenever it was applied, pathogens fell
rapidly in better soils, even under heavy loads. Sometimes to non-detect
levels and sometimes not. I was reminded again that 100% is not possible,
but this new Dr. Ingham also confirmed that soil and plants can handle
pathogens. Tilth said they would post his report shortly.

Another part of the goofeyness posed by NOP is that there are major
differences among manures, hmm? My sense from the 75 or so Tilth meeting
folks is that manure is best composted. Period. Per the compost group and
Ingham reports, there are more ways to do that than NOP prescribes, too.

> So, stop saying composted manure. Either it is compost, or it is manure.
<
Gotcha Ma'am. Composted manure is compost, not manure. Good distinction.

> Compost extracts do not have the brewing period. So, the organisms have
not had an opportunity to wake up, the beneficials have not been given an
additional encouragement. <
Agree, but they can wake up anytime, as needed, hmm? Aerating, brewing,
soaking, leaching, stirring, steeping, sunning, flowing, what are you
suggesting here? They can be awakened variously anytime it seems to me.
That aerobes can be grown with ACT is clearly a major new benefit.

> Compost leachate is a passive process. Both tea and extracts require a
physical ripping of the organisms off the compost. Leachates do not, and
therefore usually only contain the soluble nutrients from the compost. Not
nearly the same benefit, but growth responses can be seen because of the
enzymes, hormones and humics that can be solubilized. <

Precisely my point about stirred teas. But ripping off? How about
extracting or separating or stripping? I think Jeff got that right.
Stirring teas certainly encourages organism separation, maybe even better
than just aerating, hmm? I'd like to think I'm getting pretty good with my
big fat wooden kitchen fork...

> > How was AH formed? <
Thank you for the history. I hadn't heard it before. Sorry I missed that
and never doubted it was good stuff after seeing it. It's like good
vermicompost and likely better for fungal tea content.

> We have to make sure that people understand that "processed" manure is
still manure, and subject to all the regulatory oversight, UNTIL they
compost it. Processed manure and compost are very different things. <

I am still struggling with processed manure. I agree it's very different
from compost and that it's not compost, for sure. What it is biologically
and chemically eludes me.

Something Steve Scheurell said at the meeting rings in my mind... Because
processed manures have had most organisims and pathogens killed, they can be
a "microbiological bomb waiting to go off" with a re-colonization of
pathogens. And "processed manure materials" being certifiably organic seems
inappropriate without more information about their synthetic content.
Doesn't
make sense vav composting. More needs to be known about processed manure
materials than has been heard heretofore. In the meantime it should not be
approved as an NOP certified organic material, imo.

I'd be willing to bet we will prove compost tea is better faster, but I get
the feeling processed manure is not going to be challenged despite potential
natural actual dangers...

> But, you HAVE to get your definitions clear and correct. DON'T lump
manure tea and compost tea into the same category. <

Ya. I don't think I ever did that. Biological Water Extracts. Compost
teas. Plant teas. Manure teas. Nutrient teas. Many teas.

Aerated. Stirred. Steeped. Brewed. - Anaerobic. Aerobic. - Microbial.
Nutrient. - Maybe even biocidal?

CT is made with tested compost or not, trusted compost anyway, with or
without nutrients, bigger organic matter. Spray or pour.

I'd agree only teas made with good compost and clean water are compost teas.
Then there are all those other natural water extracts, most of which I
suspect are beneficial in their own way. They too need to be explained.

Leachates are leachates, not teas. I rue that some people call them teas in
the market today. We need to be able to explain CT in the context of what
people already think and are doing, darnit. Any definition needs to be
based on
what people think and do. How elsewise or better can the difference between
a leachate or a steeped or stirred or aerated tea, an aerobic or anaerobic
tea be explained? These explanations need to be done. Brinton knows about
steeped teas and has some good compost tests, too.

> What we really have to convince the USDA about is that composting does the
trick in taking out the pathogens, if the process is done correctly. You
can document that the process is done correctly, OR you can do the testing
to show that the pathogens are gone. Either approach is acceptable. The
USDA often gets stuck on "There's only one way to determine whether
something is ok". That's stupid. So, we have to de-stupid the bureaucrats.
Sigh. There's a chore. <

> Elaine Ingham <

A chore indeed. Composting can do it, surely. I suggest we all find out if
we have a connection with a member of the new congressional organic
caucus... to wit:

US House Organic Caucus Members
May 6, 2003

Caucus Chairs:
1. Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI)
2. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA)
3. Rep Peter Defazio (D-OR)
4. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD)
5. Rep. Amo Houghton (R-NY)
6. Rep. James Walsh (R-NY)

Caucus Members:
7. Rep. Tom Allen (D-ME)
8. Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
9. Rep. George Miller (D-CA) [
10. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
11. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)
12. Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI)
13. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA)
14. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI 2nd)
15. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY 8th)
16. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ 12th)
17. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA 30th
18. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY 24 th)
19. Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM 3rd)
20. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA 1st)
21. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD 8th)
22. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI 6th)

There are some really good people here, if not enough Republicans yet.

Kirk









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Received on Fri Jul 04 2003 - 23:08:38 EDT

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