Re: [compost_tea] Appropriate Humic acid for building fungi in the soil

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 10:38:36 -0500


Mike wrote:

> This process allows the humics to be soluble and has a resulting pH of about 8. Has this one been tested?? It sounds like it may not be a great food source for fungi.

Elaine's reply -
Nutritech products are problematical for me. They always say SFI has tested their products, but won't give out the data on the product. Nutritech won't give SFI permission to give the data out. It is their data, they paid for the testing to be done. So, all I can say is, you need to insist on seeing the data before you believe the salesman.

Mike also wrote:
> Second question re soil food web testing and recomendations. Soil food web tests done on strawberry soils and grapes have come back with a recomendation of 2 to 4 litres per ha humic acid and 150 litres per ha compost tea (sample no 3080 and 3081). Does this mean that after applying this we can expect to see active fungal biomass and total fungal biomass in the correct range (other things being equal) or put it another way do you have data showing that a once off application such as this will bring the fungal numbers into the correct range?

Elaine's response -
When we say that you just need to add fungal foods, and we give an amount of food, I am alluding to research and practical experience that shows that other folks, SFI included, have had biomass levels in the range you had on your SFI report, added foods in the amounts we give on the SFI report, and ended up with excellent fungal biomass as a result. Time frame for the improvement was within several weeks.

Now, the caveats. The data reported on your report show you have at least the minimum levels of total fungal biomass, and therefore the diversity of fungi desired that could reasonably be woken up by feeding the indicated foods.

The data indicate fungal activity to be present, but not as great as desired to achieve the crop production you probably desire (SFI assumes the reason you are doing this testing is because plant growth isn't as you desire). Addition of the foods should result in resolution of the biomass situation, given that everything is "normal" in your soil. Normal being temperature, moisture, pesticide residues, heavy metal loads, diseases, insects, etc. in normal or reasonable ranges for plant growth.

What is "outside the normal range". Winter, for example, is outside the normal range for normal plant growth. Addition of humics will Not fix the lack of fungal activity in a couple weeks in the winter. If you add humic acids in the winter, it will take until next spring for the fungi to chew away at those foods, and for you to see an increase.

If your soil has a toxic residue, the growth won't occur. So, if you had a test taken last year, and you take another one this year, and no improvement has occurred in fungal biomass, start thinking about toxic residues. Or think about your practices over the year - something impacted the fungi, or their biomass would be higher.

We have MANY examples, and believe me, it's examples in the plural, of people doing control versus tea-treated areas. Fungal biomass increasing wonderfully in the tea treated areas, plants responding with improved health, increased blossoms, healthier foliage, much better water infiltration, etc. Then the next samples come in and there's no difference in biology between the control and treatment. The client says, "why the *&^# are we paying for all this biology stuff, when it isn't making any difference?" Shocked me the first couple of times, because, of course, the plants were doing better. But the organisms had crashed, back to the same levels in the tea treated as the control.

Can you see the reason? The answer is obvious - they applied a chemical that killed the biology. They swear up and down they added nothing that would harm the biology. You have to get them to tell you precisely what they did. You eventually get the "oh, do you mean to say that applying an herbicide killed fungi?" I ask them, "why did you put an herbicide on? You didn't have weeds in the tea-treated plot", and their response is something along the lines that they always apply herbicide at that time. It's a preventative. Have to get them off that kind of thinking!

Mike said:
My view of this is that multiple applications will be required to restore the soil food web. Note this is intensive horticulture so regular applications of AACT and Humic acid etc are not a problem.

Elaine's response:
It may indeed take multiple applications, because you don't stop doing other practices that kill the fungi - things like tillage, fertilizer applications, herbicide applications, etc.

Sometimes you have to do things that harm the foodweb, for reasons that are necessery given the system. You now need to rescue the organisms that were harmed.

The SFI recommendation on the report cannot cover a practice that will harm the organisms, UNLESS YOU TELL US what you are going to do. SFI has advisors that can help you work through the WHOLE program. But you have to let us know what you plan to do, so we can help you figure out how to nurture the biology in the soil, even if you have to do something that will harm the biology.

So, the SFI recommendation can't cover how to help you fix the biology if you don't tell us what you are doing. OK?

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 Nov 17 2003 - 11:52:42 EST

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