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Re: [compost_tea] Sunglasses for microbes



What we are seeing is drop size is important.  If the drop size is large enough, UV doesn't penetrate the drop and kill the critters.  So, on pivots, applying through the day is not a problem, since the drop sizes are large enough.

1 mm seems to be a threshold drop size, although the research on this has been minimal.  Drops bigger than that have enough water to spread on the leaf, but the drops can't be so big that they roll off of the leaf rapidly.  About 20 minutes to a half hour is needed (given summer temps) to allow the bacteria to make their slime layer protection/attachment glue, and lets the fungi attach to the leaf surface by binding around something. 

Spreader/stickers with just a touch of oil, such as in a fish hydrolysate (Organic Gem and Neptune's Harvest work well at dilution rates recommended by the manufacturers) contain enough oil to help the organisms be protected, and foods to help the organisms grow quickly once on the leaf surface. 

Hope this helps -

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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