[compost_tea] Re: Yucca & Saponin

From: Kirk Leonard <kirk_at_oregonatural.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 14:29:16 -0800

Couple responses and a query here. To make amends for my yucca foo-pah this
past week (a knee-jerk response to how many "cides" I found in websearching,
sorry), I've begun gathering archive messages and more info on yucca and
saponin for Chris' best practices book, so please see query at this message
end.

> Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2003 13:57:49 -0700
> From: "Jason Kimm" <jsnkmm_at_in-tch.com>
> Subject: Re: Re: Re: More Yucca & Saponin

> Kirk,
I have not done side by side testing with and without Yucca. <

This oughta be done, I think. Might the good results you suggest have been
better, biologically, without? Easy to do with a couple or a few leaf
assays, hmm?

> However, I do use Desert King's "Ag Aide" 50% product at the rate of .4
gallons DK 50% to 200 gallons CT which covers 40 acres. I have had leaf
innoculation rates ranging from 40% to 95% with an average of around 70%.
While the Yucca cannot be singled out as one particular factor it obviously
did not destroy the tea or inhibit its ability to colonize the leaf surface.
FYI this was applied via airplane. The results of disease suppression were
fine and I have tested higher amounts (3 times the above) with no
degredation of outcome. <

Don't think I'd recommend testing via airplane:-) and your coverage sounds
better than I'd think you could do that way - how did you get it on leaf
undersides? (I understand how a helicopter might do that but not an
airplane.) Yucca extracts can be super-spreaders, as far as I can tell at
this point, so the coverage makes some sense, but I don't see how you can
assert "obviously did not destroy the tea" if you haven't tested same teas
without it. Probably wouldn't do obvious harm - at minimum, yucca extracts
will help plants take up water - 3X maybe even more - but also might not
support best tea...?

There are two ways that have been suggested for using yucca and saponins in
teas. One is as a spreading agent, added to finished tea, and the other is
as a fungal food for making tea. The two may be mutually exclusive and have
different effects. Were you adding at application or using as a nutrient?

> One thing to think about: is there a good reason to use a product like
Yucca in a soil drench? I use it only for foliar applications as it gets
expensive to use in a soil drench application. This would protect the
protozoa in soil app. and allow for the great effects of Yucca in the foliar
app. In some situations I would use Yucca such as in an in-furrow tea
drench when nematodes are an issue. This places the product near to the
seed and Yucca has shown some good results in helping to protect plants from
parasitic nematode infestations. Just a few thoughts. <

And good thoughts, thanks. I'd agree the best use of saponin as a spreader
is for foliar apps, probably unnecessary in soil apps, and the nematode info
is new. I had a hunch that saponin might support nasty arthropod protection
(having appreciated many yuccas and noticed how insect-free they are) but
hadn't thought about nematode effects. Do you have some more info on that?

> Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 03:11:27 -0000
> From: "chriscreid" <reidchris_at_earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: More Yucca & Saponin

> ...I didn't mean to suggest it was a bad spreader. That's a primary
natural function in desert yucca - wind-born yucca dust actually helps other
desert plants take up water, too, so it's a good spreader. My concern was
what it does to living organisms in teas. <

> Kirk,
I didn't think you were saying it was a bad spreader. Since it's a
good spreader (at least as far as what it does to make coating a
leaf with tea possible), I think it would be wise to confirm that
leaf assays on tea with Yucca spreader don't turn out to have no or
little biology. I have used it as a spreader but have not done the
assays. <

Easy to do... couple tests... same tea with and without yucca added for
spreading, and leaf assays are among the most affordable tests, too.
Comparison testing as a fungal food is a little more complicated. If used
as a fungal food, there needs to be a corresponding fungal food
consideration for control batches, seems to me, and I don't know what that
might be, or how to balance the comparison without adding too many
variables. Any suggestions?

> However, I have not yet seen anything that indicates to me that
there's a problem. IF there is a specific link or links that you
saw in one of your searches that is leading you to such a
conclusion, it would be helpful to be looking at exactly what you
were looking at that led you to interpret that information as
negative toward Y. schidigera use in tea. <

No more specific links to suggest yet, sorry. I was just filling my brain
while drilling the net and didn't keep track. Will do that for a CTBP
report, which conveniently leads me to this, to list:

QUERY: Please reply on list or off list, your choice. I want to gather
yucca and saponin info/experience for all of us, so I'd appreciate any new
contributions, which I promise I will faithfully report. I'm about a sixth
through CT archives and want to invite more comments about yucca extracts as
spreaders, as tea nutrients, as standalone teas or preps.

What's been your experience with which saponins, yucca extracts, various
commercial or home products? Any other info sources/links to suggest? I've
already found some interesting contradictions among us, so this should be
both
fun and productive...

-- Kirk














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Received on Wed Dec 03 2003 - 17:58:45 EST

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