Re: [compost_tea] Re: back pack sprayers to use for compost teas?

From: Robert Norsen <bnbrew_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:53:32 -0800 (PST)

There aare many good and not expensive ways to keep a ACT aerobic on the road. Give up ACT because of that? Don't. Bob

chriscreid <reidchris_at_earthlink.net> wrote:Judi,

Thanks for raising good questions and the system is sure not
perfect! I live about a half hour from this customer and wasn't
getting good response on my foliar applications of my tea I made at
home and took on the road. So I decided to try making there.
Somebody with a DO posted someinfo this summer saying the tea
started to go anaerobic after 10 mins or half hour or so and I
wanted active tea for foliar apps. I was trying to trouble shoot
and eliminate the possibility that transit was part of the problem.
I don't have a DO at this point, and frankly found transporting to
be unsatisfactory since I'm not brewing truckloads at a time.

The customer spends the summer at the shore, so there was unlikely
to be any human intervention in what was being done -- only the
other land management people around. The well water -- I called the
company that tests it and found out it had a pH of 7 and 1 ppm iron
in it. The water is potable and no chlorine is added. So -- I
actually think the water is better to use than the chlorinated stuff
I have to offgass at home. I brewed inside a greenhouse, so no
animal problems or weather problems.

I am dissatisfied with not being able to be there for the brewing
process. I cannot charge customers enough to be with the brew all
the time, so wherever I make it there are times I'm not there with
it. If at home, I'm on the job somewhere for at least part of the
brew time. That for me is a drawback of tea in my particular
business, as it currently exists. I could do e.g. a foliar hort oil
spray program to prevent fungal diseases and not have this worry. I
may do that next year and just use the AACT for soil apps.

In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, "Judi Stewart" <js_at_o...> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> You say you take your brewer and supplies to your customer and use
> their water and brew on site. I'd like to know how you control the
> brewing conditions since you're not there through the cycle
> (assumption here) and are you concerned about their water?
> I have two wells and choose not to use one for ACT.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Judi
>
>
> But I take the message to heart. I take my Bob brewer to the site
> with my container for brewing, us the client's hose and well water
> but my ingredients, I spray, and I clean up. If there's a
problem,
> it's in something I did. As Ted says, "You never know unless you
do
> it yourself."
>
> I would fear that the client's sprayer could be a cause of poor
leaf
> assays or results, and the long term risk I would be concerned
about
> in Ted's scenario is a P*ssing contest between owner and you/me,
the
> contractor, to the effect of "See? Compost tea doesn't work." At
> the point where one has to look for the reason why, some customers
> will be amenable to discovering its their equipment or personnel's
> actions that led to problems, and others will not. As long as
> everything is working, then there's no problem. Is there a way to
> provide a training session for the employee and make sure they
> recognize a biofilm and where to look for one? That might be good.
>
> In cases where these are major spraying jobs and customer's
> equipment must be used, I would be interested in Elaine's or
others'
> feedback about what helps make this scenario work best.



To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com





---------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links

   To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/compost_tea/
  
   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe_at_yahoogroups.com
  
   Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.






Received on Thu Dec 18 2003 - 23:54:35 EST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:14:57 EST