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Re: [compost_tea] Tea recipes - was bacteria food
The new CTBM doesn't give specific recipes anymore, since the possible ingredients are too many.
What the manual gives (if you get the e-zine, the updates from the third edition are being included in the e-zines so you don't have to buy the 4th edition if you have the third). If you have the second edition, then buying the fourth might be a good idea. Lots of changes!
In the CTBM, we list the foods that grow bacteria or fungi, and try to give you ideas on how much to add. So, in a 50 gal brew, you could add:
- humic acid (generally in the 1 to 4 ounce, or 50 to 200 ml range). Please check the SFI website for the different humics that have been tested, and choose the one you like, is easiest to obtain, etc.
- fish hydrolysate in the 2 to 10 ounce or 100 to half liter range (Organic Gem and Neptune's Harvest are great fish hydrolysates).
Beware of fish hydrolysate made from fish scraps that were anaerobic before being hydrolysed. Doesn't mean the product will always be bad, just sometimes, but sometimes can be a real problem. Don't overdo the amounts, because there is a fair CEC involved with fish proteins. Minimize the kelp or other micronutrient additions. I wouldn't put a rock dust in with a fish hydrolysate - probably not needed. All those proteins come with a goodly amount of mineral elements already attached. That means if you use too much, more than a half liter per 50 gal, for example, you run a possible osmotic shock impact on the critters.
- protein meals - as demonstrated by Jeff Lowenfels. Corn, oat, soy, vegemite, barley, feather, and on and on, work well. Read the threads Jeff has put out on those for amounts, please. Or ask Jeff to summarize.
We just finished some work showing that molasses at low amounts helps bacteria, but molasses at 5% helps the fungi significantly more than bacteria.
Please note the "more than" statement - you still get enormous bacterial biomass when using those high levels of molasses. You just start giving the fungi a real edge.
As long as you run in a well-aerated tea maker (like the KIS, EPM, recent versions of Bob-O- Laters, Clarke brewers, Earthworks), then typically you do keep up with oxygen requirements of the organisms.
I have no data and have seen no data to suggest that either the Soil Soup or Growing Solutions machines can manage to keep oxygen concentrations up to par when these levels of molasses or fish are used. Data are the key, and neither Growing Solutions nor Soil Soup show any data to demonstrate that their machines actually make compost tea.
Frank Teuton wrote some time ago that he uses a Soil Soup machine, and it doesn't go stinky, smelly. So, folks, what does that mean? It means that Frank doesn't follow the Soil Soup recommendations for running his machine. He may use cold water to start with (so in 24 hours, the organisms haven't grown that much and they finish the growing process in his soil), or he has improved the stocking design, or has improved aeration, etc. I have in the past suggested things that would make the Soil Soup machine work properly. But as delivererd, with the manfacturers directions, it is really hard to not have it go stinky, smelly.
As delivered, with the manufacturers directions, it is really hard to get a true compost tea out of a Growing Solutions machine. Can you mess with the machine and get it so it does make real compost tea, and not just a bacterial soup? Sure.
But why mess with something you buy in order to make it work, when there are great machines on the market that work from the very beginning, and come with the information needed? If you bought a Soil Soup machine, go bug Frank Teuton about what he did to make it work decently. If you bought a Growing Solutions machine, talk to Hendrikus Schraven, because he can make those machines work properly.
But there are modifications you will have to make to get compost tea from either machine.
It annoys me greatly that either company continues to call their machines compost tea machines, when they have been shown that the liquid routinely produced from their machines does not contain the full suite of organisms that was present in the compost. Beneficial fungi rarely survive, much less grow, in their brewing process, protozoa rarely surivive, and nematodes rarely survive. Certainly no where close to the original numbers in the compost of these important groups.
That's why we all need to support the International Compost Tea Council. They are working on the standards that will set the definition of compost tea. They need input from others, and this summer they should be doing more to ask for help from the membership. So then we can force companies that do not make machines capable of producing compost tea to not call their machines compost tea machines.
Then when people have soup put on their lawns and the stink makes everyone in the neighborhood gag, compost tea won't get a bad name. Soil soups will get a bad name, which since it routinely goes anaerobic, is as it should be.
Please help in this endeavor. Support the ICTC. Please talk to friends and neighbors about real compost tea, and how they need to make sure there is good data showing ALL the organism groups being present in the tea from the machines they buy.
Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com
SFI Oregon, USA
SFI Australia
SFI New York
SFI Europe
SFI New Zealand
"Hope is not a feeling. It is not the belief that things will turn out well, but the conviction that what we are doing makes sense, no matter how things turn out." -- Vaclav Havel, former President of the Czech Republic
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