Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Holding time for tea

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 11:30:31 -0400

I have been asked, off the list serve, to comment on how long you can hold tea.

IF you make sure that oxygen is maintained in aerobic ranges, you CAN hold tea for up to 5 days.  

BUT please recognize that during that time, you very well may select for an ever-diminishing set of organism diversity.   The reason for the 5 day cut-off is that by that time, you are deal with a limited set of microbe diversity.  

If you add any foods into that "being-held" tea, oxygen will PLUMMET to very low levels.  You have bunch of activated, starving bacteria and fungi in your 2 to 3 day old tea, and they will be SAVAGE about any added food, using it very rapidly, and with a huge oxygen demand.  Ask Bob of Bob's Brewers about his experience with this!  The oxygen demand can be so extreme that it will result in loss of the beneficial fungi, protozoa and nematodes from the brew quite rapidly.  Within 4 to 6 hours.  

So, if circumstances force you to hold tea, do it with caution, add only minimal amounts of food (no more than a teaspoon or 20 ml, for example) after 24 hours.  It can be done, but with extreme care.  

If you tank mix nutrients into your tea, you have the same situation, so remember that you have only a few hours - perhaps only 4 to 6 hours - to get the tea out before the beneficial fungi have been consumed.  

Of course, once your organisms have gone flying through the air in droplets, the aeration problem has been alleviated.  The thin layer of tea on a leaf surface will be nicely aerobic.  Diffusion is quite adequate on the leaf surface.  

The test to determine whether aeration was adequate is to PUT THE TEA INTO A SEALED CONTAINER AND LEAVE AT ROOM TEMPERATURE OVERNIGHT.  Open the container and smell at 24 hours.  If ok, your tea was likely ok.  IF stink can be detected, do another tea.  

Compost tea is meant to be made, and applied right away.  There is no point in holding it, as you start to lose diversity after 48 to 72 hours.  Hold it only if you have no choice.  With proper maintenance, tea can be held up to 5 days.  But then, apply it someplace that you don't care if the results are a bit funky.  I personally let the weed patch have it.  You are helping diversity in the soil, which will ultimately will select against the weeds.

OK?

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

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