Re: [compost_tea] Re: Compost Tea Best Practices - Ingredients INPUT REQUESTED

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 16:38:09 EST

Active fungi are very prone to damage by passing them through a screen, mesh,
strainer, etc.

So are protozoa.

Fungal spores are not damaged by passagethrough a screen, etc., but they will
still be caught in the sludge build-up on the surface of a screen, fabric,
etc.

That's why the Soil Soup compost bag doesn't work - the fungi stay inside the
bag.
In-line screens can be problems in that regard too. Larger size nozzles are
the way to go.

Does that answer the question? I've been a bit busy the last couple weeks,
because I've been up-dating the SFI website. We were hacked again, and so we
have completely re-vamped the website, to make it more secure. While doing the
updating, I re-wrote just about everything.

The e-zine archives will be in place soon, plus a whole new tea section.
I've separated compsot tea into different kinds, based on method to make the tea.
 

Actively aerated being the most repeatable, and the method with the best
documented results.

Fermentative teas, using the EM or bokashi approach. Less data available,
but some pretty interesting results. We need to work with people doing bokashi
to understand the production methods better.

Switching tea, where the tea starts aerobic, goes anaerobic for a time, and
comes back aerobic. Not at all well documented, some really bad results from
using it. E. coli abounds. So how would you know it to be good? Can it be
turned into a useful approach?

Anaerobic tea - smells terrible. Can it be useful? Highly variable results
on this. I don't think I want to go there, but just to make certai nthe whole
range is covered, I do mention it.

So, please stay tuned for up-dated definitions, more data, and new pages on
the SFI website.

For example, SFI has done testing on about 150 plus compost teas, made using
actively aerated methods, and none had E. coli. Not-properly tested teas?
There were E. coli. We have to get the production methods separated in the NOSB
literature.

We need to get on the case of our congressional reps again, because the
Compost Tea Task Force is not working. Jeff? Kirk? Others?


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





Received on Sun Dec 07 2003 - 16:59:00 EST

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