Re: [compost_tea] Re: pasture exp.

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 20:18:55 EDT

So, Tim, you want someone to do all the work for you, and you won't take
observations as acceptable information.

Please recognize that in the world of science, we have to start at the
observation phase.

Darwin started his work on natural selection based on observation of finch
populations on islands in the Pacific. All science starts with observation of
cause-effect relationships.

You start with the first observation, and then you continue to observe. Does
the relationship continue to hold as you make more and more observations?

Once you collect many observations that indeed the relationship holds, then
you formulate a hypothesis that there's a relationship. And you then start
testing the hypothesis.

Except, in the world of agriculture, there is no government funding to test
these observations. Why is that?

We have written grants to explore these relationships, but they don't get
funded. Why? Who controls the purse strings at the USDA? I imagine that you
have read all the current stories coming out in the press about how some land
grant universities are controlled by large chemical, pharmaceutical companies.
How the USDA is controlled by the same poeple.

What we're talking about with getting the proper biology back into the soil
would cut into chemical sales severely. Have cut into chemical sales already.


So, no funding for the studies showing that the work done in the lab actually
works in commercial agriculture.

So, growers are doing the studies on their own. When they see the benefits
of using compost, or compost tea, or getting the right biology in the soil, in
the numbers and activity that the plants need, they don't continue with the
"control - treatment" study. They turn everything into the "treatment". They
are out to make money.

So, why don't you, a scientist?, take the observational data that has been
presented to you, and put together the study that would appropriately test these
relationships.

You are being handed the background information for you to do an experiment,
which if done properly, would establish you as a leader in the field.

But if must be done properly. Some scientists that have supposedly tested
compost tea have not recognized the criteria that we have set forth for making
aerobic compost tea and aerobic compost. You make these materials properly in
order to get the biology needed into the soil.

If you don't test for the biology in the compost, in the tea, and in the
soil, you aren't doing proper science. How can these people saying that "compost
tea doesn't work", when they have made no effort to measure the organisms in
anything? You know you are dealing with psuedo-scientiists when that happens.
 

And, as has been pointed out OVER and OVER again on this study with pasture
and animal weight gain, the person doing the study is Betsy Ross, at Ross Farm.
 For the details on the study, please contact her at www.rossfarm.com

We don't claim to have done replicated, scientific studies. We are showing
there is a clear relationship. We are showing the addition of the proper set
of organisms is being very successful, in many, many conditions. Increased
yield, increased nutrition in food, improved digestibility, increased shelf
life, reduced water use, reduced disease, etc....... With the number of places
and systems we have worked with, how can you question that there is a
relationship.

But, now, let's get the controlled, manipulations worked out. We need the
funding to do the replicated science. The relationships have been repeated too
often in commercial ag situations to dismiss the fact that there's something
there, that we know what we've shown in the lab is real.

But, work needs to continue. Solid, replicated sicence is needed. You
willing to stop being negative, and start being positive?

Elaine Ingham









Received on Mon Aug 09 2004 - 21:37:05 EDT

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