Re: [compost_tea] Re: 131 degrees Farenheit heated compost for 3 days

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 17:09:37 EST

I really dislike making broad statements about compost, or tea, based on
incomplete understanding and testing. Think through the data -

In perhaps 90% of the cases, when temperature and turning are done correctly,
compost contains no pathogens worth worrying about. The beneficials are also
present, and growing, and we get no re-growth of the pathogerns.

In maybe 8% of the cases, pathogens are clearly present, but don't re-grow.

In perhaps 2% of cases, pathogens survive and are very happy. Why? What are
the conditions that allow this to happen?

That's what needs to be understood. But this number of failures is not
enough to require new regs to be written about the situation. The percentage of
":odd cases" is inadequate. You can't make a federal case out of something that
is so low incidence.

But we need to still understand these unusual situations, and work to fix the
problem. And the problem is in the composting, not in the tea. These odd
situations need to be figured out, but don't throw the baby out with the bath
water!

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 Mon Mar 01 2004 - 23:48:56 EST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:05 EST