Subject: [compostteas] E. coli and compost teas

From: allisonhornor <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 16:22:50 -0400

Just a note about Nafiisa Sobratee's message...E. coli are facultative 
aerobes, which means that they prefer to live in anaerobic environments, 
but can live and reproduce very well in aerobic environments. In fact, when 
scientists work with E. coli in the laboratory, we use aerobic conditions. 
There is some evidence and preliminary data that human pathogens are not a 
significant concern in compost tea if they are not present in the compost 
used to brew the tea, but there have been no articles published in peer 
reviewed scientific journals on this topic. Remember also that E. coli are 
soil microorganisms and live in many soil environments. There are many 
different strains of E. coli, some that are harmless to humans, some that 
are mildly pathogenic and some, like E. coli 0157:H7, that are extremely 
virulent to humans. I think the more important question to ask is: "are 
there virulent strains of E. coli in compost tea?" Several different 
researchers, including myself are working on this topic and at least one 
paper (from researchers at Soil Foodweb Incorporated) is in the review 
process and due to be published soon. It will be very interesting to see 
the results of this research. Currently the use of compost tea is not 
permitted under the new National Organic Program (USDA Organic) because of 
concerns about E. coli and other pathogens. Hopefully research in this area 
will define safe ways to brew and apply compost tea so that this emerging 
sustainable technology can continue to be used in agricultural systems.

Allison Hornor

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Allison L. Hornor
Graduate Student
Department of Crop and Soil Science
Cornell University
706 Bradfield Hall
(607) 255-3226

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