[compost_tea] Re: Protazoa

From: Tim Wilson <thegoodjob_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:53:23 -0000

Are you using your own worm castings? Homemade (& most quality commercial) =
castings (vermicompost) will have plenty of protozoa (mostly flagellates). =
They usually begin dividing rapidly at around the 26 to 30 hour mark in bre=
wing ACT (aerated compost tea) provided there are lots of bacteria/archaea =
to eat. They normally divide at the rate of about every 2 to 4 hours in pro=
perly made ACT.

If I were you, I'd add the hay to the brew at the beginning.

Are you checking this yourself with a microscope? What sort of protozoa are=
 you getting from the hay?

Sometimes when you send an ACT sample to a lab, by the time they culture (p=
late) for the protozoa, they have already peaked. Therefore, you may have h=
ad active protozoa when the sample left your home.

For more information on this please email me.

Salutations,
Tim

--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, "markhommez" <mark_at_...> wrote:
>
> First time on the forum so please be patient. We have been playing around=
 with making compost tea using worm castings rather than compost.After send=
ing a sample to Soil Food Web, results show no active protazoa. According t=
o SFW, you can soak hay for two days to get a population of protazoa. We di=
d that, checked after 1 day and found some buzzing around. On the second da=
y, we found nothing. Should we be bubbling this hay because just plain soak=
ing didn't seem to do the trick? Thanks!
>




Received on Thu Jan 19 2012 - 13:21:24 EST

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