[compost_tea] EM leachate "tea"

From: David Anderson <squtch_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:27:28 -0700
Well, now that the EM subject has been broached, I might as well toss
in some of the questions and comments that I have been thinking about
lately. I would really like the input of people that do not have a
vested interest in EM, yet have looked into the biology and results
derived with it.

When I first heard about it at the fair at the Yelm Worm Farm, I was
skeptical. After all, the woman was pitching an anerobic process, and
anerobic is "bad". But I looked into it anyway.

Of course the true believers use it for anything and everything. I
would not be at all surprised to hear that someone mixes it in their
house paint to increase the insulating value. It is *really* hard to
take any of them seriously.

Up till this discussion, the only thing that really interested me was
to do the bokashi thing with my food waste between building compost
piles. And I figured that adding the bokashi/food mix to the compost
pile would help inoculate any anaerobic pockets with "good" anaerobes.

I don't like the idea of adding it straight to the garden, because
their own description of the process seems to imply that you have to
actually let it go aerobic for a couple of weeks before it is safe for
plants.

The true believers push using the leachate from the bokashi/food
buckets as a foliar spray. Does anyone know how well this works?  Are
there any potential bad effects?

How about innoculating a batch of ACT with the leachate, as Elaine was
talking about with EM?

What is the behaviour of the EM critters in an aerobic environment? It
seems to me that they are not all strict anaerobes. Are they just less
competitive? Do they produce different byproducts in an aerobic
environment?

I guess that is enough questions for now.

Dave

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Received on Thu Oct 21 2004 - 15:43:00 EDT

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