[compost_tea] Re: Language and testing and thought (was Re: metal chelates

From: Kirk Leonard <kirk_at_oregonatural.com>
Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 12:39:13 -0700
Ted -- Appreciate your posts last couple days.  Thanks for the tutorial on
calculating park irrigation volumes, too.  Good info.  Have you spoken with
Sam Farr?

While we're on language stuff, I'd like to pose a couple of things. Firstly,
no matter how simple, any compost tea, be it the less-than-an-hour variety,
stirred or steeped or aerated for however long, is a biological extract,
hmm?  The essential difference is some simply take up soluble nutrients,
minerals, metabolites and spread some organisms, others grow the organisms
in addition to taking up nutrients et al, even anaerobically.  Soil or
foliar use makes a big difference, too, I think.

Your tea structure:
> 1. Water quality and chemical constituents
> 2. Compost quality and diversity
> 3. Aeration capacity and pattern
> 4. Inputs
> 5. Temperature
> 6. Brewing times
> 7. Elevation
Seems excellent to me, except for one language thing that has bugged me for
a long time, also where Doc E and I bump heads, I fret.  The term "brewing"
is off-base.  "Extracting" or "solublizing" (?) and/or "growing" is what is
happening and what "making tea" is all about, not brewing as in what witches
do (mind you I love witches) or what Anheuser-Busch and Heineken do.
Brewing implies both fermentation and heating, neither of which figure
similarly in making ACT.  It's misleading and distracting.

Which leads me to another saw:  I hate "AACT"!  It's redundant.  "ACT" -
aerated compost tea - is sufficient.  Can anyone explain the difference
between AACT and ACT to a newbie without resorting to the conclusion that
they're the same thing?  "Actively aerated" is silly - of course it's
active, whether you use electric pumps or hand-power (or flow forms, for
that matter...).  ACT is good and clear enough.

-- Kirk

Re: metal chelates: For us microbiological dolts, how do metal chelates made
chemically differ from chelates made with plant enzymes?  Is this another
petrol hole?






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Received on Fri May 07 2004 - 00:29:11 EDT

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