Re: [compost_tea] Hi Dr. E / nice thing to do!!! :< ))))

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:29:06 -0400
We had a great time in Eugene last night - rain and all!  They sent me home with kohlrabi, lettuce (4 kinds), and raspberries from the garden.  Fresh!  I was consuming on the way home - a little soil went down along with the DELICIOUS greens!  Yum!

Those of you in the Eugene, Oregon area - Grass Roots Garden, a part of Food for Lane County - has a little microscope.  Joan has been trained to use the microscope, and Mary Bradley, who runs the Grass Roots Garden, will soon be trained.  If you put in volunteer time for the Garden, you can be trained to use the microscope too. 

The garden has a couple different tea brewers - all donated, some by me, some by other people - and they can do comparisons of different types fo compost, different recipes of amendments, etc on tea quality.  I expect to see some interesting results from them soon!  I've been working with them on compost recipes for the back-yard gardener for a couple years now.  We have that under control, now we are going to work on the teas.  Have to have good compost first, then you can have fun with tea. 

Let's go through definitions of good tea -

When the tea has no biology to speak of (maybe just a few bacteria per field of view), that's BAD tea.  Really, it's not tea.  Guess which tea brewer often gives you that result?
 
If you see:
- 25 to 500 bacteria per field of view at 100 total magnification,
- no fungi even in 10 to 20 fields of view,
- no protozoa,
- no nematodes,
that's POOR tea.  At least you have a decent amount of bacteria, but that's it.  It's poor tea, because you only have bacteria, and they are probably anaerobic, or the fungi, protozoa and nematodes would be there.  Guess which tea brewer usually gives this kind of result?  And you can check this for yourself with the little microscope. 

If you see:
- over 500 bacteria per field of view,
- at least one strand of fungus in 10 to 20 fields,
- a couple flagellates and/or amoebae, or a FEW ciliates (flagellates, amoebae and ciliates are all kinds of protozoa),
- maybe a nematode or more om 10 to 20 fields of view
then you have ADEQUATE tea.  This often happens when you add too much food for the aeration level you have.  Or the water was too cold, still had chlorine residue in it, had some toxic something in your recipe, the tea machine wasn't cleaned properly.  If you have only adequate tea, you need to be careful with the amount of tea you spray out - you may want to double or triple the dose.  Make it 15 gal per acre for a foliar, not just 5 gal per ac. 

If you see:
- lots of bacteria per field (more than 500),
- a fungal strand in the first 5 fields you look at,
- all of the groups of protozoa in that first 5 fields
- maybe some nematodes in those 5 fields,
you have VERY GOOD tea.  Use the 5 gal per ac amount for foliar sprays. 

If you see:
- huge numbers, thousands, of bacteria in EVERY field,
- a fungal strand in each field of view,
- many flagellates and/or amoebae in EVERY field,
- a nematode or two in the sample,
then do a dance!  This is EXCELLENT tea.  This can be applied at less than 5 gal per ac.  This tea can be "diluted".

Guess which tea machines give us these kinds of results?  KIS, Nature Tech, EPM, Bob-O-Laters, WormGold, Charlie Clark, Alaska Bounty, and many home-made brewers.  In Australia, many folks have good machines, but you need to ask the Australia lab for that info. 

So, every one selling tea should get a little microscope, get trained to identify the critters, and take pictures of each tea brew, to be able to document what is in the tea brew.  You still need to confirm activity and quantify biomass, so twice a year, have a tea checked by SFI to let you know you are getting the levels of active organisms that you need. 

Those of you buying tea, you should ASK the seller for this kind of information.  Where is their proof that they are selling good stuff? 

Doing the little microscope approach takes about 30 seconds to put the sample on the slide and observe it.  It can be done EVERY batch.  You can even take a sample at say, 15 hours, and figure out if you need to do something to improve the tea, so it is EXCELLENT tea by the time you get to 24 hours.

Any questions?  Come take a class......

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 Thu Jun 10 2004 - 11:29:38 EDT

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