Re: [compost_tea] Water temps for brewing
Hi Ted -
Logical testing approach on your work. Good job. I am now going to answer
specific things that Ted mentioned, and do a little thought jog about the
purpose of what we are doing with compost tea. If this is too specific for you,
please just go on.
------
There is another aspect to this that I think you are over-looking in your
thought processes with respect to your results. And a potential mis-lead in the
microsopy you are doing.
Not an attack here, just trying to make sure we don't go off on a tangent
that leads us someplace we didn't really need to go.
A possibility, an alternate explanation is, that given the compost you are
using, you don't have the lower temperature organisms in the compost. If the
compost was made in such as way as to exclude the lower tempeature organisms, so
they are not present in the compost, then you can't get them in the tea brew
either.
So, go back to the compost you are using - how is it being made? If you
can't get the median and cooler-loving fungi or bacteria in the tea, then it
suggests that someplace in the compositing process the compost is getting too hot.
Those cooler temperature organisms should be present in your tea.
When people pre-compost worm compost, to lower E. coli, and other human
pathogen numbers, they often let the pile get too hot. Just like thermal
composting, you have to turn the pile when it gets too hot, or lose too much oxygen.
There is a worm composting operation near you where they have that problem.
The manure they use is heated to very high temperatures before they put the
manure into the worm bin. If you happen to be using that worm compost source,
that will be a porblem, and could be biasing what you are doing. Probably have a
nitrate problem with that compost too. Just a possibility but one that needs
to be checked out.
Just because manure was heated to a high temperature does not mean that ALL
the lower, or cooler temperature organisms were killed. Some were killed, the
ones that can't make dormant stages. So, the diversity has been harmed when
compost gets too hot. Check your compost source.
So, you brew at a cooler temperature to match soil temperature. If you are
actually growing a plant when the soil is 40 degrees, then brewing the tea at
40 F is logical.
Except how many of us are actually trying to grow plants when the soil
temperature is that low? Think through the purpose of applying the tea.
If you want plant litter decomposition at 40 F, then ok, select for the
cooler temperature loving fungi by brewing at cooler temperatures.
But please Ted, think fungi. You focus and concentrate on bacteria. Do you
really need to be improving bacteria? Don't you have enough? Well, maybe you
need a greater diversity, but don't exclude getting the fungi going too.
But if you want to set the stage for when the seeds germinate and plant roots
start to grow, perhaps the better choice is to grow more of the 55 to 60 F
bacteria and fungi, and get them into the soil now, so they are ready and able
to get to work later this spring.
We add the WHOLE DIVERSITY of bacteria and fungi so that when the plant puts
it's roots into the soil and releases exudates to grow bacteria and fungi, the
species of bacteria and fungi that the plant needs, and is selecting for with
the precise mix of exudate sugars, proteins and carbohydrates, are present
and can grow.
If what you enhance are jsut the cool weather lovers, while you have the
species of bacteria and fungi you need when the plant roots start growing?
Just more things to think about, ok? Nothing "right" or "wrong" in all this.
Just consider your purpose.
> I have tried brewing at temps from 80 D.F. down to 55 D.F. and I have been
> looking at the tea with a Spencer 1000x microscope. I then take soil samples
> at different times and examine them the same way after dilution in distilled
> water. I try to make sure the amounts of soil and soil depth are as similar
> as I can get them and I use the same microscope technique every time. I
> look to see if what I am transferring from the tea is "taking" in the places I
> apply it. Because of the limits of my microscope, I can't tell types fo
> bacteria but can see bacterial fields and I can see if the same organisms transfer
> to the soil. This, of course, means before and after soil examination.
>
You should be able to distinguish the different morphology of bacteria and
fungi in your samples. You should be able to distinguish protozoa and nematodes
too. and you are doing the right thing, with respect to before you add
something and after you add something.
One important point though is how you prepare the samples for observation.
You need to break up the water stable aggregates, and there are some specific
things you need to do to make sure that you aren't being mis-lead because you
have bacteria and fungi establishing water stable aggregates, and thus holding
the bacteria and fungi that are growing in those aggregates, and not
dispersing into your solutions. If you use tap water, you have to make sure the water
is not lysing cells as well.
> From these results, I came to conclude that brewing closer to soil temp
> gave me a greater assurance that I would be promoting biology that was more in
> line with the temperature rather than brewing for one temperature and hoping I
> was getting the correct microbes for the soil.
But is it temperature that is the important point, or is it a specific
function that you are trying to obtain? We don't want to get caught on the biomass
alone point. You have to think activity. Are you getting the functions you
want into the soil? what is the function you want when your soil is 40 F, or
50 F, or 60 F?
Higher numbers of bacteria are nice, but is it what we are really looking
for?
By the way, I have been experimenting with the aerobe/anaerobe balance and
the
> growth of protoza. I am getting results and will forward those when I have
> some repeatable trends. Your comment about Bacillus Licheniformis during
> the mad cow discussions got me looking into ways to grow protoza and
> bacterial/fungal eating nematodes within a brewing cycle of 48 to 72 hours. That meant
> that I had to rethink how I was brewing while still keeping the basic
> concept of ACT in place.
>
Good idea on the protozoa. We do need to think about how to make the tea
brewing process better for them so they will reproduce. But they will only
reproduce once, maximum, during a 24 hour tea brew. Have to have aerobic
conditions in order to keep the good guys alive and happy.
Nematodes will not reproduce during the 24 tea brew. They won't even think
about reproducing while being whirled around in the tea. Nematodes need solid
surfaces to hold onto, and they need specific fungi, and sometimes specific
microarthropods to consume in order to go into reproduction. Not likely to
happen in the tea brew. So, the nematodes in your tea brew are the ones you
extract from your compost.
> That is one of the experiments I am involved with. I have four others that
> test my own understanding of the process and time lines for microbial
> growth. I'm basically trying to get to the Trophic Zone that contains Flagellates,
> Ameoba, Paramecium and BacterialFungal eating nematodes, etc. So I have
> brewers constantly going with different inputs. In one, I have an experiment to
> produce actinomycetes I gathered up from the local decomposing tree detrius.
> (I take a lot of precautions here because research has shown me that certain
> strains of these things can be quite toxic to humans.) I have trained my
> son, a ten-year-old home schooled intelectual monster in the same microscope
> technique and logging method I use and he is starting to do the sampling now.
>
Your own built in lab tech! Send him to SFI for a little training, ok? Hate
to see you re-invent the wheel, when we can help him learn rapidly. Yes,
there is a fee for our help, sorry, but the techs doing the training expect to
get that pay-check so they can have groceries too.
> I have been looking at bacterial growth, bacterial enzymes and the
> cultivation of higher order bacteria/fungi through enzymes produced by the critters.
> I have already grown protoza and nematodes in brewers by using hay mixed
> with compost and molasses and blood meal with some other organic inputs.
>
Avoid the blood meal when growing the protozoa and nematodes. It can select
for some nasty protozoa and nematodes that are human pathogens. OK? Please?
> I'm not a scientist by education but I'm not ignorant of the scientific
> method and the need to document before writing or speaking. I learned this
> early on when I misstated that ACT can help control snails and slugs. It was a
> good lesson in humility. If I write something on this list, it is the result
> of over two years of experimentation and brewing and applying tea in "real
> world" situations. I am constantly experimenting and testing my own hypotheses
> and those I implement from other people. It is simply a fact of this type
> of business. Where I live, my business associate and myself are considered
> knowledgable in this stuff because everything we have stated, we have proven.
> Every assumption we have made has been backed by prior knowledge and shown to
> work. I do all the brewing and experimentation and brewer/aerator design.
> Very soon, I will have my designs posted so anyone can build the systems from
> off-the-shelf materials and be sure that they are assembling a brewer that
> will work as stated.
>
Other tea brewer folks do that and have done it, so there are other places to
go looking for designs as well. We can always use new designs, especially
user friendly approaches, where the considerations and thought processes are
included in the information.
I have't looked at your website, Ted (sorry, I don't manange to do
everything), but I know that you are careful and honest about the information you put
out. The care that you take to work things out and test for yourself tells me
what you give people will be solid.
I consider compost tea machine makers who mis-lead the people who buy their
machines about cleaning times, or the ease of using their machines, or the
compost they are selling them, to be slime of the earth. When a salesman has to
lie to get people to buy their machines, and then I have to show those people
how to fix those machines to make them work, really burns me.
So, Ted, when you said you had data showing your results about temperature, I
just wanted to know more. I think there are a couple of things you need to
consider along with temperature, so we don't put too much emphasis on
temperature alone.
A clear statement of what was being looked for and why the experiemnt was
done might be a good idea.
But that makes me grin - I don't always clearly explain what I'm talking
about, and so a question or two for clarification from the peanut gallery (of
which I am part!) should not be taken as an attack. I wasn't attacking you, Ted,
I was just asking for more information. Didn't mean to make you feel
defensive!
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 Jan 18 2004 - 14:56:23 EST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:00 EST