Re: [compost_tea] Re: US Composting Council WASRe

From: Jeff Lowenfels <jeff_at_gardener.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Aug 2004 11:17:49 -0800
Henry,

I am not sure your premise that putting the food in all at once is
detrimental to the micro organisms. Start with the fungi: Since the
fungi in tea don't multiply but rather only grow, at the very least if
you want fungal tea it would seem that all the fungal nutrient should
go in at the start of the brew and not after the brew has started and
bacteria have started to multiply. They will out-compete the fungi to
the fungi's detriment.

The exception, of course, are the mycorrhizal fungi which go in at the
end of the brew.  I would not even put them in until the brew is
finished and it is ready to be applied. Too fragile.

As for the bacteria, in theory holding off the food resource means they
multiply up to the limit of the additional nutrition. Won't they go
dormant if there isn't enough food? The end result, you add food and
they wake up and get to woek again, but their numbers will be lower in
the end than if you had given all nutrients at once. I expect that
there would be a yo-yo effect on the O2 demand as well.

One of the commercial brewers here in Anchorage tried what you were
doing, but got low test results, particularly in the fungal area.  Has
anyone else out there done tests?

Cheers,

Jeff L


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Received on Sun Aug 01 2004 - 16:57:12 EDT

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