Re: [compost_tea] RE: MICROBIOLOGY TESTING of COMPOST TEAS

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 13:12:23 EST

Hi Ted -
 
Thank you so much for understanding what this is all about. It is what is
new about what we are putting together. We are coming to understand the
factors.
 
We are getting quantitative about "what biology is needed to convert a given
amount of nutrient into a plant available form, AND how much of that does
the plant take up?"
 
I do want to emphasize several of the words I used...... getting, and coming
to understand. We are getting there. We are a long way from "there".
We've taken the first few steps. We should all work on this together.
 
Both Arden and I talked about this at our ACRES course. Both of us
recognize that more information is needed.
 
But the questions you are asking, Ted, are exactly what we are trying to
figure out. And we are being successful - the first few baby-steps of success.
 
When we start with a soil where plant production is less than maximum of the
potential production that plant can produce, and we add the PROPER biology
to soil, with the proper food, we have measured the nutrients which are
present in that soil in the exchangeable pool and the soluble pool.
 
Two weeks later, we go back to that soil, and measure the exchangeable pool
and the soluble pool again. No nutrients were added in that 2 week period of
time, but nearly invariably, with the nutrients we have chosen to measure (we
 haven't done every nutrient), the exchangeable pool has increased by nearly
3-fold, and the soluble pool by 10-fold.
 
Interesting, huh?
 
If you add in assessment of the total extractable pool in all this, that
pool does not change.
 
That's what I explained in the e-mail from several months ago. I went
through this in more detail then, and those of you who want to know more should
look at that e-mail. Or come to one of Arden or my courses.
 
Arden and I are giving a course in Fresno the last week of January. Please
look at the SFI website (_www.soilfoodweb.com_ (http://www.soilfoodweb.com) )
and come join us, in order to understand this new approach to assessing
availability of nutrients to plants.
 
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 Dec 28 2004 - 15:01:33 EST

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