Re: [compost_tea] Re: Re: measuring aeration

From: Robert Norsen <bnbrew_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 22:12:02 -0700 (PDT)

I want to clear a couple thaughts here. Elaine and we were both too busy this week end to pay as much attention as was useful to guide and record thes tests. but note below.

soilfoodweb_at_aol.com wrote:
Hi Kirk -

The way to know if you are getting enough air is to meaure it when you use your typical recipe and your typical compost. Start from that knowledge, instead of from the CFM, or air pump horsepower.

The deeper the wate column, the greater the pressure has to be to make bubbles. The configuration of the bitti machines Bob had in the lab might have been different from other designs. They did not produce much surface movement of the water. The Bitti were identical to what paul used. We may have been deeper so the action on the surface was less visible. The bubble rate is the same to much more pressure than existed here. the low D O2 noted was simply really high microbe propagation from certain combinations.

I have seen Paul Sachs machines, and they really bubble nicely. Different pump? I dont' know, and it isn't up to me to police different tea makers. Identical pumps and systems to Paul's. I made and shipped them.

I have said, over and over, that you need to have data from the makers of the tea machines that show, with the pump, recipe and compost they recommend, that the tea will contain the aerobic organisms needed. The tests that stayed within the recipe published had no probelem with D O2 Test results and proceedure may need to be explored and published in detail to learn more from them. there are many misconceptions of what was done and the results. And yes we need many more carefully disigend tests to learn more about this art.

I find myself getting very frustrated with all this. The point is to make good tea. Measure that end point, and determine what the CFMs need to be in YOUR machine, in order to make good tea. As machine makers change the container size, depth, height, the pump used, etc, it is hard to remember to ask all the right questions about exactly what was done.

The point is to make tea that has the organisms in it. Aerobic organisms, because we have even less data on anaerobic organism tea than aerobic tea, and with certain conditionsin anaerobic tea, we can make some really horrible brews. I've killed quite a few plants with anaerobic tea. I've never published that data, because you don't publish negative results.

Hope to get some replicated studies in on that this winter however.


Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com


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Received on Mon Oct 13 2003 - 01:58:09 EDT

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