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Re: [compost_tea] Re: Tea and EPA regulations



Elaine et al,
    Is there a collection of field test data on the various controls of CT?  Any test with controls to show control of one pathogen or another?  I'm as interested in the work that's been done and the procedure as well as the results.  Method, replication, etc will help me explain what scientific work has been completed and give me insight has to successful and unsuccessful avenues.  The scientific community, even those who don't have all the answers for their focus, is quick to marginalize the work completed and potential of CT research and use.  I love information, knowledge and debate but not cynicism and negativity.  I have found the best way to deal with the latter is to have current trends and data along with the admission that this is (to quote a commercial) emerging science.  Thanks for any insights.
 
Bill Garlette
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 2:14 AM
Subject: RE: [compost_tea] Re: Tea and EPA regulations

A fungicide is a chemical that kills a fungus using a specific mode of killing action, such as solubilizing the cell membrane, or interfering with cell elongation, or disrupting a metabolic function.

Compost tea does not function in these ways.  Or at least we do not have any evidence that tea has these modes of function.

Compost tea results in protection of the leaf surface by using  the food resources that the mildew would otherwise have and be able to grow on (the beneficial fungi in the tea use the foods; the beneficials are better adapted to use the foods than midlew under the conditions on the leaf surfaces, specifically good aeration, specific foods made by the plant to select for the beneficials and not the mildew).

Another mechanism is that the leaf or root surface is now covered by rapidly growing fungi and bacteria which prevent the disease fungus from getting to the leaf surface.  All the infection sites are occupied by the beneficials, so there is no way the disease can get to the plant cells. 

Protozoa and nematodes consume disease-causing fungi.  If the EPA wants to make us register this interaction, then they will have to register cats as biocides to control mice.  Predation is generally considered a physical control method, and not something that is under EPA jurisdication.  We are not growing ONE specific species to CONTROL a different species, unlike people a biological pesticide.  

Antibiotics may be produced in tea, but there is no evidence that this is a mechanism by which tea works.  So no one should use that as a potential mechanism by which tea performs it's function.   

There is nothing toxic about tea. 

There is a great of protection, competition, competitive exclusion, and consumption.  But no specific one-on-one control. 

Compost tea is not a fungicide.  DO NOT MAKE ANY CLAIMS THAT IT IS.

--
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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