Re: [compost_tea] Re: Watering (orchard mulch)

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:08:17 EST

Mulch and manure mixed with sawdust are not the same thing.

Mulch should be wood-based material. Putting something high in manure, and
therefore high in nitrates, or if anaeorbic, high in ammonia, can be more
harmful than beneficial for several years.

Mulch should be aged so that the initial burst of bacterial growth has
happened. That burst of bacterial growth, where they use what ever small amount of
simple sugar, simple proteins, amino acids, carbs, etc, will severely tie-up
other nutrients, N included. So, that process has to be over before you use
mulch around your trees.

OR - yep, there's more to think about -

If you put on mulch on a soil that is healthy, has the organisms that will
buffer the early mulch tie-up of nutrients, then don't worry. Healthy soil is
robust.

But, putting un-composted materials, which includes manure with sawdust or
other woody materials, can result in a huge bacterial-burst of growth, serious
nutrient tie-up, and tmerpature elevation of the soil at exactly the time the
plant roots should be going to sleep because the temperature is cooling off.
You can fool plants into spring-time behavior, just before winter sets in.
Plants don't tend to survive when that happens.

But again, if you have heatlhy soil, and your roots are down in the soil
where they belong, then this nutrient tie-up, and even temperature elevation
doesn't reach the root zone. But it requires healthy soil, and roots that have
been growing in a healthy manner for quite some time.

It is best if you compost the manure-sawdust mix properly first. That way,
you help build the soil, help roots grow deep into soil, because you supply the
biology and chemistry needed to start the building process.

If you have good soil, well-made compost will just continue to enhance the
soil-building process.

I always smile at the USDA's statements that it takes a 100 years to build an
inch of soil.

Not true, if you understand biology. We can build an inch of soil in a
couple days, given the proper conditions. Now, in arid, no-organic matter soils,
we have to get the orgnaic matter and the biology back into the soil, with some
water to start the building process. But even there, we've built an inch of
soil in three months. Talk to the Larsson's in New South Wales, in Australia,
where they've been growing bumper crops of barley and soy on 13 cm of water a
year for the last 4 years.

Lots of examples where things are working, and examples of how to use
existing equipment to do this. It was the step we had to take, to document that this
approach could work on the practical level.

The science of "if you get the right biology into the soil, then plant grow
in a healthy manner" has been documented, and is in the scientific literature,
starting about 1985, with the Ecological Monograph published then.

Practical application to real-world conditions were then required. We ran
straight into the brick wall of agronomists, botanists, extension folks saying
only the chemical approach would work. So, we are demonstrating that the
biological approach does too work.

And now, hopefully, there will be a group of voices demanding that the USDA,
NSF, and other government funding agencies fund LARGE scale replicated
experiments, done by people who give the biological approach a fair test, not done by
people who have an agenda to protect their "life's work" and therefore
sabatoge the results.

Bugging your congressional people is what is needed. Make sure the funding
to do the final, finishing touch of "proof" is provided.

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 Tue Nov 09 2004 - 11:37:23 EST

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