Re: [compost_tea] Re: cleaning machines

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2003 01:54:01 -0500

Linda asked how I could object to people being nasty when I have said things about Bess, Alms, Neff and others.

There’s a difference between facts that show behavior that is not entirely honest, and name-calling.

There’s a difference between facts and not-supported-by-fact allegations.

There’s a difference between facts and lies.

I object when non-specific allegations are made. I asked Linda off-line what she was objecting to in her post titled, I believe, “confused and alarmed”, because her objections made no sense to me. She has not answered my request for clarification, because, I believe, she has no basis for her statements.

On the other hand, I can document that the paper that Ms. Bess wrote for Biocycle about E. coli growing in compost tea was not good science.

Bess did not use compost in the work she did claiming that E. coli grows in compost tea. In the paper she published she stated that pre-composted material was used. In what way is that compost? How can a publication purport to be about compost tea when compost wasn't used?

In addition, Bess had no DATA to support her contention that the Growing Solutions machine remained aerobic through the entire 24 hour brew. She measured oxygen concentrations at 0, 8 and 24 hours. She neglected to measure oxygen concentrations during the 16 hours that tea is most likely to go anaerobic if aeration is not properly maintained.

The Growing Solutions machine used by Bess has been documented to become anaerobic during every brew. The current models of the Growing Solutions machines include aerators in the baskets. Hum, do you suppose perhaps a problem was recognized and dealt with? But then, where does that leave Ms. Bess? The machine she used goes anaerobic and yet she continues to claim that the machine did not go anaerobic during her testing.

I have a problem with that discrepancy. Is it nasty of me to point out facts? But it doesn't stop there.

The oxygen levels reported in the Bess article were impossible. At the elevation and temperatures reported in the Bess paper, oxygen concentration cannot be in the ranges that were reported. Water cannot hold that much oxygen at the temperature and elevation reported in the paper. The claims that Bess made, and continue to make, that the tea was aerobic through the whole brew, are extremely questionable.

If a liquid goes anaerobic for more than a few hours, beneficial fungi, protozoa and nematodes will be lost. Compost contains all these organism groups, plus bacteria of course, so how can you call something compost tea where most of the organism groups that exist in compost have been killed?

Based on a machine that produces conditions that allow E. coli and human pathogens to have the habitat they need to grow happily, the conclusion from Bess' work has allowed the USDA to attempt to smear all compost tea, i.e., that all compost tea should be treated like manure. Do you think perhaps that the broad and over-arching conclusion from Bess' work was perhaps inappropriate?

But, what I am saying are simple facts that you can check out for yourself. If you don’t like facts, are you going to call the truth nasty?

The facts surrounding the Bess paper need to be explained so people understand why we face the problems that we do in the world of compost tea.

Will Brinton and others in the USDA attempt to make the case that compost tea causes E. coli to grow. Bess showed that E. coli can grow when conditions in a culture vessel are right for E. coli to grow. Those are not the conditions in actively aerated compost tea machines, however, and to try to make the case that all compost tea will result in E. coli growth is absolutely wrong.

Let’s move on to Alms, or more correctly, the Growing Solutions machines. First of all, there’s the work published by Bess. Growing Solutions machines have some serious problems if they allow E. coli growth. Perhaps some instructions should come with those machines to explain the conditions where the manufacturer has shown that the machine does not result in E. coli growth. Perhaps a clear explanation of the importance of the aerators in the compost baskets should be required.

But the manufacturer does not provide any such information, nor does the manufacturer show any results to offset the data from the Bess article.

On the Growing Solutions website there are data showing a single plate count measurement from several years ago of tea from the machine documented by Bess to grow E. coli. One test? As if this constitutes anyone’s definition of adequate testing to show the benefit from any commercial product. And the data are several years old? What, Growing Solutions has never had a better result?

And no one can support the “species richness-diversity index” used by BBC Labs, which is what Growing Solutions shows to try to convince people their machines make compost tea. There is no such ecological or biological measure named “species richness diversity”. This is a invented measure, which might be useful, if there were some data to show what it meant. But what does it mean to have an “8” or a “10” or a “2” index reading? Data from Dr. Eric Nelson at Cornell University shows that the index is meaningless with respect to disease.

Any decent microbiologist will tell you that plate counts cannot tell you anything realistic about diversity. But that’s the data that Growing Solutions uses to try to convince people that the tea made by the Growing Solutions machine is capable of making compost tea. No data on protozoa, nematodes, or beneficial fungi.

Growing Solutions recommends 26 pounds of compost to make 100 gallons of compost tea in the current version of the Growing Solutions machine. And even with that surfeit of compost in the machine, the tea doesn't achieve the minimum fungal biomass that other tea machines get. Other 100 gallon machines use somewhere between 7 to 14 pounds of compost, and manage to get better organism numbers than the Growing Solutions machines.

Growing Solutions tells people their machines can be cleaned in 20 minutes when in fact, that is a huge under-estimate of the time it takes. Significant bio-films were present and growing on the bottom of the disc diffusers in every single Growing Solutions machine that I have ever been invited to look at. It is not easy to get this bio-film off the bottom of the discs. It is NOT easy to get the discs to pop out. I cannot get the “quick-connect” connections to un-screw. There isn’t enough space at the bottom of the tank for me to get a grip on the part you have to un-screw. I have little hands, so I have to get a tool to move the connections, and there isn't room to get the tool in there easily.

The air bubblers in the compost baskets that are now in every Growing Solutions machine start to grow bio-film in the bubbler material. Growing Solutions knows that this happens (I’ve pointed it out to them so I know they know, but they then "cut all communication" with me over the fact that I have pointed out problems with their machine). But, do they tell their clients that the bubblers have to be cleaned after each brew? No.

And how much time does it take to clean those bubblers? How long do you have to leave them soak to get the bio-film out of the bubblers? It's more than 20 minutes.

Between the discs and the bubblers, it is a great deal more time to clean their machines than Growing Solutions will tell you. They try to use the "short" cleaning time as a sales advantage. But in fact, that is a serious mis-representation.

Facts. These are facts, whether you like them or not. Is it nasty to tell people about facts?

It is nasty to make non-specific and un-supported statements that attack someone else unfairly. It is nasty to make claims that you cannot support with facts. Back your statements up with facts and then I will listen to you.

Just as with Chris, when he showed me the pictures of the pipes, I could see what he was talking about, and I hope that Bob Norsen will address those conditions.

No facts? I ask that the nastiness stop, that the attack stops, as there is no basis for nastiness or attack.

SFI has data that shows, time after time, that Soil Soup machines do not have beneficial fungi, protozoa or nematodes in the brown liquid that their machines produce. The smell that comes from their machines is sometimes so overwhelming that it has been known to make people leave the room and sometimes the building.

But, Soil Soup has recently made an effort to correct one of the major problems with their Bio-Blender. This is not the Soup Kitchen machine, and a clear distinction needs to be made between what they sell in Soup Kitchens and what is produced from the Bio-Blenders. The fabric bag for the Bio-Blender has been changed. They sent out nylon bags made of a single layer of material, so that fungi will not be caught and retained in the bag. The fabric bag was also a great place for mildew to grow.

So, the change is a step in the right direction. I applaud the effort. I still expect that Soil Soup ought to do some testing, some solid, scientifically sound testing to show that the machine they sell actually makes something that will routinely produce the benefits they claim. If they could show that with this improvement that bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes now survive and flourish in the liquid, then I would not be critical.

But again, facts.

If a claim is made that a machine makes compost tea, should not all the beneficial organisms from good compost survive in the tea? If compost is not used (see Kirk Leonard’s last post about the Soil Soup Kitchens), how can they call it compost tea? The organisms are the reason for compost tea performing the benefits it performs, so how can something that does not contain those organisms give the benefits? To call it compost tea is a mis-representation.

Data. Show me the data.

When people don't have data to support what they talk about, when people have to resort to name-calling and twisting what others say, then that's attacking, and that’s nasty.

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
SFI Culiacan, Mexico
www.soilfoodweb.com


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Received on Sat Dec 20 2003 - 06:29:30 EST

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