From: soilfoodweb@aol.com
Date: Sat Mar 15 2003 - 20:34:23 EST
The information you can state about disease suppression and compost tea is
that the compost tea organisms use the foods that the disease-causing
organisms would otherwise use in order to grow. Say nothing about the
disease, just the disease-causing organisms.
The compost tea organisms occupy all the space on the leaves. If there is no
space for any other organism, then disease-causing organisms have no space to
grow either. If all the infection sites for the diseases are occupied, how
can disease-organisms cause any problems?
Protozoa and nematodes consume bacteria and fungi, and they will consume the
disease-causing organisms too. Cat and mice mechanisms, and the EPA will not
and cannot regulate these MECHANICAL interactions. That's the case we have
to make to the regulators. Do they want to regulate cats, dogs, birds and
beneficial insects? Compost tea falls in that same category.
But, let us NOT push it, all right? The International Compost Tea Council is
working on the regulatory verbiage. Give them time. Give them your support.
No other group is making any effort to deal with the regulatory issue. What
I can't believe is compost tea machine makers that keep working with people
who are trying to say that compost tea machines grow E. coli.
BUT, don't emphasize the disease-control aspects of compost tea in the
commercial world, ok? When you present things at meetings, you should not
make that claim. When I talk at meetings, I show data that prove that
compost tea has that potential. But I don't sell tea. I make no commercial
claims. If you happen to be selling a compost tea maker, or compost tea, or
happen to have a copy of my book at your booth when I am at a meeting giving
a talk, you are not the making any claims for tea. and neither am I. I'm
just showing data that says, look, this can happen. If you make tea
correctly, we see these effects. It is up to the client to make sure they
make the tea correctly.
When someone asks about whether compost tea has disease control ability, YOU
HAVE TO SAY THAT EVIDENCE ABOUT DISEASE CONTROL HAS NOT BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE
EPA, THE USDA, OR OTHER FEDERAL REGULATORY AGENCIES. You have to say that
there are some interesting research projects that are going on in the US and
other coutnries, but nothing absolute to show yes or no across the board yet.
Certainly there have been people who have not understood how to make good
compost tea that have failed to obtain disease control.
But people who make compost tea, then transport it for 10 to 15 hours without
aeration and then claim that the tea killed their plants clearly do not know
what they are doing.
Researchers that apply compost tea to fields with less than 0.5% organic
matter, plow the field, and then wait three weeks before planting their seeds
are doing everything possible to make certain they will see no benefit from
adding tea. Bacteria and fungi are organisms that have to have something to
eat in order to do their job. If we didn't feed you for three weeks, how
well would you perform your function? And who is it that did that research?
Um, USDA extension folks in which State? Don't tell me that they are trying
to give compost tea a fair test.....
Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand
"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well,
but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things
turn out." -- Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic
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