Re: [compost_tea] basic questions
Organisms don't tend to just wash out of compost. It takes a fair bit of effort to pull the organisms away from their food.
Sort of like people sitting at a table -- it's hard to pull them away from the table as the meal is arriving. You have to do something pretty drastic to get them to leave.
In compost, it's the vortex, or the water movement through the compost that rips the organisms from the compost into the water. So passive water movement through a layer of compost on the soil surface doesn't move much into the soil, at least as a single event. By the time you get four or five rain events, then maybe some movement happens. Of course, there's deeper movement in sand than in clay soil as well, so factor in soil type.
The thing that moves critters from a compost layer on the soil into the soil is really the predators and "taxi-cabs" in the system - things like earthworms, protozoa, nematodes, and microarthropods. Another reason you need the bigger critters.
As Bob said, compost is great as a soil amendment, but you can't get compost to stick to the leaves or aboveground part of the plant. Darn it. But that's why compost tea is so important for foliar applications.
But mix compost into the soil, move it into the root zone, and it can do as good or better than compost tea.
So, as a soil amendment, I'd always choose compost first.
But what if it is too expensive to get that much compost and put it out? What if the applicaiton system you have makes it too expensive? Its easy to spread on small acreage, but not on large areas. Think about spreading compost in 5,000 acres......
A great deal easier to apply as a liquid form. And thus, compost tea is a better choice.
You can't make statments that compost is better than compost tea, or the other way around, unless you consider the specific situation. In certain cases, compost is much hte better choice, while in other situations, compost tea is the better choice. There are even places and conditions where inocula of specific organisms is the better choice. Have to know the circumstances.....
So when people call me the compost tea queen, don't fall for it. I don't care how you get the proper set of organisms into your soil and onto your plant surfaces. Just get them there.
--
Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
SFI Culiacan, Mexico
SFI Jerome, Idaho
SFI South Africa
http://www.soilfoodweb.com
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor |
ADVERTISEMENT
 | |
 |
Yahoo! Groups Links
Received on Fri Dec 31 2004 - 05:42:21 EST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0
: Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:41 EST