Re: [compost_tea] Quiz - do you know the answer?

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 14:15:32 EST

You don't apply compost tea based for NPK.

You use compost tea to establish, and get growing, the biology that does
nutrient retention and nutrient recycling.

You usually get a "fertilizer effect" with compost tea, because your plants
will now control their own rhizosphere and thus the rate at which nutrients
become available to the plants.

On foliage, the tea organisms elevate CO2 on the leaf surface, and thus
influence stomatal responses. Elevated CO2 causes the stomates to open sooner, and
remain open longer, thus allowing nutrients on hte leaf surface to move,
through simple diffusion, into the plant.

Please start learning the mechanisms that explain why tea does what it does,
or you end up saying something that critics latch onto and go ballastic.

You should read the most recent thing Will Brinton has said about compost tea
- that compost tea is worthless, because it doesn't have high concentrations
of inorganic nutrients. He just doesn't get it, does he?

Actively aerated compost tea contains the organisms required to immobilize
and retain nutrients on leaf surfaces, in the root system, etc. But bacteria
and fungi alone are not adequate to establish a healthy foodweb.

What else is needed?

And therefore, why is it that if the liquid goes anaerobic you can't possibly
have the benefits of a healthy foodweb added to the soil, or the leaf
surfaces?

It's a quiz! Do you really understand what actively aerated compost tea is
all about?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc, Oregon
Soil Foodweb Inc., Australia
Soil Foodweb Inc., New York
Soil Foodweb Inc., New Zealand
Soil Foodweb Inc., The Netherlands
Soil Foodweb, Inc., Mexico
Board Member, Sustainable Studies Institute, Eugene, OR




Received on Sat Nov 15 2003 - 14:42:55 EST

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