[compost_tea] Compost Teas on my crop - daylilies.

From: Scott Alexander <daylily_at_bigpond.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2004 21:41:09 +1000
I was asked about how my daylilies were responding to compost tea. I think I
mentioned a couple of years ago that 50 gallons of undiluted CT was able to
suppress the development rust spores on a majority of  the 250 different
varieties I grew in an acre trial plot . This plot of intensively grown
plants was sprayed at full moon over a 11 month period.

The other 6 acres were given 150 gallons through the irrigation system (in
approx 5000 gallons of water).  The trial ceased at the end of 2002 and now
the trial plot is treated the same as the rest of the farm and rust has
returned.

This rust (Hemerocallis puccinia) is a particularly nasty one and can make
quite a mess of the leaves on some varieties that have very little
resistance. Most of the varieties that become badly affected in spring are
tetraploids whereas the diploid varieties are much more resistant.  On my
farm daylily rust doesn't appear to affect the growth of plants although
when the disease arrived in Nov.2001,  3 varieties  lost all their foliage
for 3 to 4 months. This doesn't happen now.

Since the beginning of 2003,  7 acres were fertigated monthly with 200
gallons of CT (plus nutrients added just prior to dispersal - kelp, fish,
humic acid, micronised lime)  via overhead sprinklers and these foliar
applications are the sole source of nutrition for these plants. Its now 4
years since I side-dressed the daylilies in the stockbeds with the specially
blended organic fertiliser I used to use.

CT has enabled me to make big savings each year - possibly in the vicinity
of $2000 counting wages.

I have to admit that after all these years I'm still in awe of the amazing
affects of CT - particularly now because I'm  DOING IT ALL WRONG and have
been doing it like this since early this year.   To enable me to quickly
apply 200 gallons of CT in 5000 gallons of water to 6 acres (down from 7)
I've designed a system for the tea to be sucked into the irrigation system
BEFORE the inlet of the huge pump (puts out 4000 gallons an hour). For three
years prior to that, I had a venturi system 2 metres from the outlet but
that was far too slow (and inconvenient) for me when circumstances changed.

According to the experts, fertigating the new way would mean that huge
numbers of fungi and other poor microbes would be
annihilated/shredded/killed wouldn't they?   BUT some of them must be
surviving this treatment and continuing to provide nutrients and benefits to
the plants. We certainly haven't had perfect weather - we've had the driest
6 months on record and yet plant growth hasn't been affected.

If I had the time and $$$'s and if Elaine's Lab. was just down the road,
I'd take samples from the sprinklers and find out what survived. In the
meantime I'll continue what I'm doing until . . . . . .

Scott Alexander









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Received on Tue Nov 02 2004 - 08:54:02 EST

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