Re: [compost_tea] Microscope training course...

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Sat, 15 May 2004 13:25:36 -0400
Hi Thomas -

Grin!  You need to buy your own lunch. 

The course will be at the Corvallis lab in Oregon. 

The course is a half day intensive instruction in how to use the microscope, how to focus the condenser light on hte sample, how to do the shadowing method needed to increase contrast, and how to recognize all the "stuff" in the tea samples.  Well, we'll start that process.  I don't know all the stuff in compost or tea, after 30 years of staring at soil, compost and tea. 

More grins!

The course starts at 8 am on Friday May 28, or Friday June 4.  If there is more demand, we'll add more courses. 

You have to sign up in advance for the course.

We limit class size.  You want one-on-one interaction.  That's the way to do this. 

So, afer training you how to do the methods, then we look at good tea, bad tea, ok tea, WOW tea, tea you bring, so you learn what the critters look like. 

Bring your digital cameras too.  Make sure they are 3 X optical zoom.

The afternoon will be practice time - whatever you want to look at, and ask questions about.  We end at 5 pm, but you could leave anytime you feel you have picked up the method. 

There will be a manual, with a standard curve in it, to show you what bad, good and great tea is. 

Prerequisite is a sincere interest in quality compost tea and how to make quality compost tea. 

We'll probably give some demo on how to look at your compost as well.  Again, you can't get all the info you need, but it can give you some great hints about if you are going the right way.  You will need to confirm with the full testing with SFI, but you will be able to see, instantly, how you will be using this to monitor tea quality, and perhaps compost quality.  EACH BATCH. 

Soil is not something that you can do with this microscope - you have to have the $25,000 scope to work with soil. 

Activities, protozoa, nematodes, and mycorrhizal colonization still needs to be done with the lab.  And confirm what you are seeing with the lab too.  The ability to take pictures is necessary too.  

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
SFI Jerome, Idaho
http://www.soilfoodweb.com

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Received on Sat May 15 2004 - 13:51:37 EDT

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