Re: [compost_tea] New to me, anyone have peer reviewed data contray to report?

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 12:47:13 EDT

I suspect that this is the publication of Pat Milner's data from the Growing
Solutions machine.

First, note that in fact the Growing Solutions machine does not maintain
oxygen levels above 6 ppm in all parts of the tea brewr through the whole tea
brewing cycle.

The compost in the baskets compacts and drops to 4.5 ppm oxygen. Even with
aerators in the baskets, the compost still compacts and drops too low.

Underneath the disc diffusers, mixing is inadequate and oxygen drops below 6
ppm. Biofilm develops on those inadequately aerated surfaces.

The Ingram and Millner paper neglects to demonstrate that the compost they
used actually contained a diversity of organisms. They make conclusions about
diversity in the compost not being adequate to prevent pathogen growth, without
ever demonstrating that the compost was actually decent compost.

They did not document that the molasses they used was pathogen free. They
did not document the other materials they put in the tea were pathogen free.

Please note that it is necessary for the scientific world to go through these
phases where people publish papers that miss the point of what has been
discovered, so others can come along and correct them. That's the scientific
process.

We just have to be able to point out the lack of understanding on these
people's parts. If the conditions in the brewer are not proper, if the compost
isn't good compost, then there can be problems.

If you make bread, and neglect the proper conditions for getting the yeast to
grow, you can have real problems. That's what we're dealing with here -
people who don't understand.

This paper shows that tea brewers that don't actually maintain aerobic
conditions can cause real problems. Imagine if manure were put in this system!
Imagine the pathogen growth if this was brewed without the aeration that did
occur!

What we need is some government funding for someone to do the testing
properly, and document that properly aerated ACT does the job.

Instead of doing half-cocked research, they need to do it right. We all know
there are problems with the not-controlled tea brews. If anaerobic tea
worked well, if anaerobic teas achieved what we can achieve with aerated tea, then
pesticides and fertilizers would never have been used.

But, anaerobic teas don't maintain the diversity of organisms needed to
compete with all kinds of undesirable organisms.

Can we put in facultative anaerobes, like EM, which will reduce the
probablility of facultative anaerobes like E. coli growing? Sure. That works too,
it's all part of diversity.

But they have to document what the biology is in the compost first.

This paper didn't pay any attention to the quality of the compost. So, this
is flawed science, at best.

Elaine R. Ingham
Soil Foodweb Inc., Corvallis, Oregon
Soil Foodweb Inc., Port Jefferson, New York
Soil Foodweb Institute, Lismore Australia
Soil Foodweb Institute Cambridge, New Zealand
Laboratorios de Soil Foodweb, Culiacan, Mexico
Soil Foodweb Inc., Jerome, Idaho
Soil Foodweb Inc., South Africa







Received on Fri Oct 08 2004 - 13:43:20 EDT

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