Re: [compost_tea] very disapointing soil test

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 09:46:40 EST

 
Please do not get be unhappy about receiving an "adequate to good" rating on
the qualitative assessment of your tea.
 
That means exactly what is says. Your tea contains enough organisms to
adequately cover leaves, or the soil, with the proper biology, when applied at
the rates SFI has tested and recommends.
 
You should be patting yourself on the back for achieving compost tea this
good, instead of putting yourself down.
 
The rating for adequate to good compost tea, using the qualitative test, is:
 
1. bacteria between 25 to 500 per field examined, which puts your tea well
over the minimum desired range of 10 ug per ml. This means you will cover
your leaves or soil quite well with bacteria if you use 5 gal/ac (50 L/HA) or
for soil, you will add in a good level of bacteria using 20 gal/ac, or 200
L/HA.
 
2. at least 10% of the fields examined contained fungi. This is minimal,
and that tells you what needs to be worked on in your future teas. Grow more
fungi in your compost by pre-activating the compost with fungal foods. Jeff
Lowenfels has put some great recipes for doing that on this list serve.
Nature Technologies has some good starter packs for growing fungi as a
preactivation step. Humic acids, fish hydrolysate, grain meals and even cardboard or
paper can also help grow fungi as a pre-activation step.
 
3. protozoa appeared in 35% of the fields examined. This is adequate to
get these organisms added onto leaves or into soil. Maybe doing something to
improve their numbers would be good, but you have them, and they are in good
number in your tea. Would more be better? Well, if you are getting good
results, could you have better results?
 
 4. Getting beneficial nematodes into the tea brew is difficult. You have
to use really top-notch compost, or as Jeff has suggested, tea -quality
compost of the highest caliber. So, doing more with the compost would be
necessary in order to get these beneficials in the tea.
 
 
I don't understand why people have to get negative about the testing, just
because they don't have the highest category results.
 
SFI methods tell you what is really there. Isn't that what you need to
know? Do you want SFI to be giving you false data so you can feel good about
your results, or do you want to know what is really there?
 
-------
Coconut coir needs to be aged to get rid of the terpenes and phenols in the
material. Terpenes and phenols are made by the plant to prevent most
microorganisms from being able to decompose the plant material. That's why it is
around the coconut - so help preserve the seed.
 
So, when not properly aged, or aerated, coir is anti-microbial. once aged,
and the terpenes and phenols volatilized, then the plant material is a great
fungal food. So to quickly process coir into something useable by bacteria,
AND FUNGI, it is not really a decomposition process that you are looking at,
but rather a physical factor of allowing these compounds to blow off.
 
Elaine


I've been recycling my soiless media made of mostly
coco coir and about 10 percent bagged worm castings
put in a year ago and perlite. We ammend our soil
after each crop with some rock dusts, 7-7-2 fish
pellets, and oystershells. We've been applying good,
tested ACT for about 6 months with slow but steady
results. We've been top dressing with good compost
each crop for about 2 months. The plants have NEVER
looked and performed better.


We got an qualitative analsys performed by a certified
SFI advisor and was very disapointed to get a rating
of adequate to good leaning more towards adequate.
Heres the data:

Bacteria >480 Fungi 10% Protozoa 35.00%
Beneficial Nematodes Absence

Does anyone have any knowledge about how well soil
organisms live on coco coir? We know its not great
for fungi, but we thought after time the bacteria and
such would decompose many of the natural fungicidal
properties.

We will we experimenting with differnt media soon.
Does anyone have any suggestions? We grow flowering
herbs which we usually harvest within 4 months. We
would only need about 20 cubic feet total so a more
pricy alternative is possible.

Idea's people, we need ideas!! This is suprising
considering the positive effects of ACT we've been
recieving.



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 Wed Mar 09 2005 - 10:57:14 EST

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