Re: [compost_tea] too much N

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 04:17:49 EST

 
Hi John -
 
Excess nitrate or ammonium needs to be taken up by the biology, and
typically you can achieve that by applying compost, or compost tea, and extra
molasses, fish, protein meal (like soy meal, oatmeal, etc), depending on whether you
want bacteria or fungi to do the "suck-up" job.
 
Tomato needs a balance of fungi and bacteria. So, somewhat bacterial
compost or tea would be good. BUT, you want to look at what is in the soil to
begin with, so you know what needs to be improved.
 
People keep thinking that they somehow "know" whether their soil is fungal
or bacterial, without checking. Just because you added a fungal food does not
mean that things went fungal. doing some checking to know that you have
fungi to begin is necessary, and then whether the added fungal foods got the
fungi growing.
 
Kind of like people - just because you put vegetables on the plate for the
kids to eat at dinner cannot serve as evidence that the kids got their
vitamins. The dog may have gotten the vegetables........
 
Same with soil, there are many things that could be present in soil that can
way-lay the fungal foods, such as residues of pesticides, predators of
fungi, Trichoderma activity, etc.
 
The only way to know for certain what is going on is to do some checking.
Testing is needed.
 
Especially if your friend added decomposed leaf material and no fungal
response was noted, then it is likely that there weren't adequate fungi present to
start. A good fungal compost or tea would be a good idea, to get the
organisms at least present.
 
Hope this helps!
 
Elaine
 
 

Hi Everyone.

A friend has a problem that I think is a perfect invitation to AACT. I'd
like to see
what others think, especially you, Elaine.

For years, he has been using mushroom "compost" as the basis for the soil in
his raised vegetable beds in an urban setting. Everything has done quite
well
except tomatoes. As would be expected, he gets all vines and no tomatoes
because of the excess nitrogen in the soil.

He'd like to use the same soil for his tomatoes -- but ammend it somehow to
balance out the N.
Would the critters in tea eat enough N to do this for him?
Am I right that a highly bacterial tea would be called for? Would any
special
tea food or additive help?
Would a woody mulch help? (He has added a good deal of leaf mold with no
noticeable results.)

Thanks,
John




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 Mar 15 2005 - 07:20:52 EST

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