Re: [compost_tea] Re: Re: Molasses Danger Zone... Other Correction....

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:02:36 -0400

Question from Kirk L -
Please Doc E or Kirk W (Doc K?:) say something more about this before I screw up even more... I mis-read Russell's data looking for the number on the odd bacterial results yesterday.

Correction: His sample #2 used 1.35% molasses, which does appear to be close to Doc and Kirk W 1% molasses concern. Remember the "danger" was about ecoli. None was found at
0.1%, 0.5%, or 5%. Some was found at 1%. His sample #1 was at 0.17%.

Elaine notes:
At 0.17% molasses, that's not enough to get the bacteria or fungi growing enough to drop oxygen below the desired range, unless water temps were near or above 100 F.

BUT, look at the other ingredients. Stop getting so bent on the molasses, and pay attention to the other bacterial foods in the brew.

Blackstrap means less of the plant material has been removed from the plant sugars. Please don't rely on your dictionary for a definition, go to websites from places that make sugar. They have chemical analyses of exactly what is in different kinds of molasses. No rum...... A little vinegar.

Vinegar is a food for some bacteria, so it's presence can be used by quite a few species. It's when you get PRODUCTION of vinegar in tea, because it is only produced by microbial growth under anaerobic conditions, that it is not a good thing. Of course, in high concentration, such as when you add it to soil or water to drop tea, or to kill bacteria (it is what certain kinds of sushi is preserved by as I understand), it can become a sterilant or a preservative.

Amount present is critical to know.


Back to Kirk's question -
But if no ecoli is in compost, there is no real danger, just different B/F dynamics? "Danger" seems overly dramatic. I feel like I'm in the weeds.

Elaine notes -
Right, if you can document that the compost contains no significant human pathogens, then who cares if you add in sugar of not? Can spontaneously generate something that isn't there.

Back to Kirk -
Ecoli is not relevant as USNOP promulgates, nor do I remember how this thread began.

Elaine notes:
Pathogens in tea should not be disregarded, however. They are a concern. Same as the concern you have when you get in your car to drive to the store. Or maybe less concern than that - you are perhaps hunderds of thousands of times more likely to die on the way to the store than you are to die from pathogens on your vegies. And the pathogen problem on your vegies is as controllable as we all feel the driving situation is controllable. If we just keep our eyes open, and watch out for crazy drivers, we are going to be "safe" in our cars, right?

If we just wash the vegies before we eat something from the store, we should be fine. More likely that the store clerk forgot to wash their hands before putting hte vegies out, and thus contaminated the vegies than pathogens from the compost survived the trip to the store. Children playing in the vegie garden need to be taught to wash the vegies before they put them in their mouths. What is a bird pooped last night? Much more likely to be a culprit than the compost.

Sanity......

Back to Kirk L -
> Russell's question about low bacteria is the more important
> one. He got results which run counter to what Doc E suggests --

Wait a minute. The results from Russell are perfectly fine. Look at the fungal biomass. Good stuff. Good activity and good totals.

Low active bacteria and high total bacteria can be the result of a number of things, and you have to process through the possible explanations.

Low ACTIVE bacteria could mean not enough food to feed the bacteria, except then total bacteria would be low too, right?

Doesn't fit the facts then. Except what if the bacteria grew, used up the molasses, and are slowing down? Perfect - put the bacteria on the leaf surfaces and they will chow down and get going again fast.

Low active bacteria might mean a toxic material was produced after the bacteria got growing, and high bacterial numbers were produced. Hum, fits the facts better, right? Except, the fungal biomass says lack of oxygen was not a problem. So, the brew did not go anaerobic.

If the fungi had been low, what toxic materials would have been the culprit? Not something that was in the molasses, since that would have been harmful from the beginning. It would have to have developed in the tea brew. So, this case would be where bacteria grew, dropped oxygen too low, and so low activity, high total bacteria. But that would have killed the fungi, and they would be low.

They aren't. So, bacteria ran out of food. That's why activity is low by the end of the brew.

Then why does the brew go anaerobic so fast when the tea gets moved to the sprayer? I think I understood that right.

No aeration. There's still significant growth of both bacteria and fungi, and thus oxygen demand, that stopping the aeration results in dropping oxyge concentrations pretty quick.

And there's the fact that not only was molasses concentration increased from te a1 to tea 2, but seaweed amount was increased significantly too. What does all that additional seaweed do?

Interesting that lots more molasses and seaweed did not improve fungal or bacterial biomass. If anything, there was less growth. That suggests what? A salt limitation on growth? More foods should result in more growth, but that did not happen.

Check the seaweed.

Elaine

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Received on Tue Jul 22 2003 - 11:39:02 EDT

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